Opportunities and challenges of biomedical imaging in fetal and neonatal brain disease

One in ten children has neurodevelopmental disorders and it is estimated that in about two thirds the problem occurred during fetal or perinatal life. The development of imaging biomarkers to detect and monitor abnormal neurodevelopment is a research and innovation opportunity. There is a strong need of supra-disciplinary researchers with transversal skills encompassing biomedical neuroscience knowledge with engineering/advanced medical imaging processing, and of ambitious projects to generate clinically applicable solutions. In spite of limitations, recent years have seen important advances in the generation of combined multidisciplinary papers which are expected to constitute the seminal work leading to more advanced projects capable of generating true advances in imaging biomarker discovery.