Myeloarchitectonic plasticity in elite golf players' brains

Abstract

Human neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that exercise influences the cortical structural plasticity as indexed by gray or white matter volume. It remains elusive, however, whether exercise affects cortical changes at the finer‐grained myelination structure level. To answer this question, we scanned 28 elite golf players in comparison with control participants, using a novel neuroimaging technique—quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI). The data showed myeloarchitectonic plasticity in the left temporal pole of the golf players: the microstructure of this brain region of the golf players was better proliferated than that of control participants. In addition, this myeloarchitectonic plasticity was positively related to golfing proficiency. Our study has manifested that myeloarchitectonic plasticity could be induced by exercise, and thus, shed light on the potential benefits of exercise on brain health and cognitive enhancement.

Physical activity and the brain myelin content in humans

“…Brain water content, in turn, is affected by pathophysiological processes such as neuroinflammation or edema which generally makes white matter integrity assessment in MRI settings more complex ( Winklewski et al, 2018 ). Nevertheless, in the reviewed studies the T1 and 1/T1 sequences were used in young healthy subjects ( Rowley et al, 2020 ; Shao et al, 2022 ).…”

“… Shao et al (2022) included 55 adults: 28 golf players (20 men and 8 women; 24.61 ± 5.20 years old) and 27 non-players (19 men and 8 women; 24.56 ± 4.68 years old). All the participants were right handed, physically and neurologically healthy with normal or corrected-to-normal vision.…”

“…2023.1198657 of internal capsule, posterior corona radiata and superior corona radiata was positively linked to wrist movement activity across all participants. Shao et al (2022) included 55 adults: 28 golf players (20 men and 8 women; 24.61 ± 5.20 years old) and 27 non-players (19 men and 8 women; 24.56 ± 4.68 years old). All the participants were right handed, physically and neurologically healthy with normal or corrected-to-normal vision.…”