Detail

Keywords

Neonatal Neurology

Research group(s)

• Neonatal Neurology
  Members:
  Eva Schwindt
  Julia Buchmayer
  Raphaela Jernej
  Julia Elis
  Katharina Goeral

Research interests

My primary research objective is to study premature infants born before 33 weeks of gestation who are affected by intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) and its associated complication, posthemorrhagic ventricular dilatation (PHVD). 

IVH and PHVD remain major causes of morbidity and mortality in preterm infants and are key determinants of developmental outcome. However, the etiology and progression of these diseases are poorly understood, consensus on the optimal timing and type of intervention is missing, and neurodevelopmental outcome cannot be sufficiently predicted.

To address these challenges, a clinical study called PIMIENTO (PrecIsion Medicine in IntravENTricular hemorrhage for Outcome prediction) has established a well-characterized cohort of preterm neonates covering over a decade of data including clinical characteristics, biomarkers (proteomics and miRNA data), neurophysiological data, and neuroimaging.

As part of PIMIENTO, my dissertation will focus on neurophysiological data, specifically amplitude-integrated electroencephalography (aEEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), with the primary objective of improving the predictability of individual clinical courses by employing machine learning techniques.

Selected publications

1. Steiner, M. et al. (2024) ‘Acute impact of posthemorrhagic ventricular dilatation on cerebral oxygenation in preterm infants with intraventricular haemorrhage’, Acta Paediatrica [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.17375.
2. Kienast, P. et al. (2024) ‘Neurodevelopmental outcome in preterm infants with intraventricular hemorrhages: the potential of quantitative brainstem MRI’, Cerebral Cortex, 34(5). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhae189.