Manuel Blesa Cabez

The authors have declared no competing interest. This research was funded by the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation and Medical Research Council UK (MR/V002465/1). JPB acknowledges funding from the UKRI MRC programme grant (MR/X003434/1) and Theirworld (http://www.theirworld.org/). The Developing Human Connectome Project was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7/20072013)/European Research Council grant agreement no. 319456.

1 INTRODUCTION The cortex undergoes dramatic changes in the last trimester of pregnancy and early postnatal life as a result of concurrent cellular and molecular processes including synaptogenesis, axonal growth, dendritic arborisation and myelination (Kostovi'c et al., 2019; Ouyang et al., 2018; Volpe, 2019).

Highlights - Preterm birth can lead to long-lasting alterations of white matter micro- and macrostructure, not visible on conventional MRI. - White matter structures associated with cognitive function are predominantly affected. - These white matter alterations are more pronounced in preterms who suffered from early postnatal cytomegalovirus infection. Introduction Premature birth is a global challenge, with an estimated worldwide prevalence of 10.6%.