Principle Investigator: Associate Professor Mark McKay
Project Institution: Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne
Children with complex heart defects are at increased risk of physical, learning and behavioural problems. This project will assess the use of advanced MRI brain imaging techniques to investigate brain structure and function, in people with a single ventricle chamber, palliated with a Fontan operation. It will assess volumes of different brain structures, and the microstructural organisation of white matter fibre tracts, which are the brain’s information highways. Subjects with better outcomes will be compared to those with worse outcomes. Understanding of imaging contributors to outcomes may help develop ways to optimise management strategies, including the timing and type of surgery
