19 newborns (10 males) with HIE who underwent therapeutic hypothermia, had 3T MRI studies at mean age 3.84±0.98 days after birth (NE-score 4.53±2.13). Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (BSID-III) was performed at ~18 months. Unscented Kalman filter tractography and white matter analysis pipeline were used to automatically extract corpus callosum (CC), bilateral corticospinal tract (CST) and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF). Using SPSS, linear regression analysis was conducted with BSID-III outcome scores (cognitive, language and motor composites) and diffusivity metrics of each tract (fractional anisotropy, mean, axial, and radial diffusivity), controlling for age at scan, sex, gestational age, birthweight, MRI scan site, MRI scanner model, number of scanner head coil elements, and whole brain volume.

FA (p=0.017; β=-0.778, Adjusted-R²=0.931), MD (p=0.040; β=0.767, Adjusted-R²=0.875), and RD (p=0.031; β=0.719, Adjusted-R²=0.895) values of the left IFOF during the first week after birth correlated with BSID-III language scores (mean 104.84±13.78) at age 18 months. No significant correlation was found between right IFOF, CC or bilateral CST with any of the composite scores of BSID-III.