Despite that improved neonatal intensive care unit therapies have reduced the mortality of preterm neonates, neonatal neurodevelopmental morbidity persists at high rates. There is increasing recognition that following perinatal brain injury, cognitive deficits in preterm neonates can often occur in the absence of significant impairment and cerebral palsy often due to non-severe white matter injury (WMI). Minicystic and diffusive white matter lesions that need MRI detecting make up the predominant role in the preterm brain injury. The target cells and tissue of WMI in the preterm infant not only focus to preoligodendrocytes and white matter, but also involve neurons and grey matter. In fact, brain developmental trajectory in the premature infant with WMI is a mixed disorder of destructive and dysmature processes. Current MRI applied with high resolution could detect the punctate and diffusive WMI at early stage, distinguish the hemorrhagic lesions from reactive gliosis, analyze cerebral metabolism, and even describe the developmental progresses of myelination, fiber tract, cortex and cerebral connectome. But the predictive value of different MRI techniques in brain development requires more and long-term research through the all life stages.