Structural changes in functionally illiterate adults after intensive training

Boltzmann, Melanie; Mohammadi, Bahram; Samii, Amir; Münte, Thomas F.; Rüsseler, Jascha

doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2016.12.049

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 111 publications

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“…We observed that while the FPC structure before learning prospectively predicted the participants who would become Achievers, persistent daily training induced neuroplastic changes in the FPC structure. This experience-dependent neuroplasticity coincides with previous findings that suggest that neuroplastic changes were accompanied by improvement in cognitive ability 5,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41] . Importantly, a recent study revealed that the lateral FPC is specifically involved in the metacognitive control of decision adjustment in situations where no explicit feedback is available 31 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…We first performed three experiments that differed in time scales (hours to months) and task domain (cognitive, language, and motor learning) to test whether specific brain areas, particularly the FPC, predicted persistence across different types of behaviors at an individual level. Next, we used a measure of structural neuroplasticity that underlies several types of learning 5,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41] to investigate whether coaching strategies (i.e., subgoal setting) affected the neural basis of persistence and thereby modulated goal-directed persistence.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Plastic frontal pole cortex structure related to individual persistence for goal achievement

Hosoda

Tsujimoto²,

Tatekawa

et al. 2020

Commun Biol

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Persistent goal-directed behaviours result in achievements in many fields. However, the underlying neural mechanisms of persistence and the methods that enhance the neuroplasticity underlying persistence, remain unclear. We here demonstrate that the structural properties of the frontal pole cortex (FPC) before tasks contain information that can classify Achievers and Non-achievers (goal-directed persistence) participating in three tasks that differ in time scale (hours to months) and task domains (cognitive, language, and motor learning). We also found that most Achievers exhibit experience-dependent neuroplastic changes in the FPC after completing language and motor learning tasks. Moreover, we confirmed that a coaching strategy that used subgoals modified goal-directed persistence and increased the likelihood of becoming an Achiever. Notably, we discovered that neuroplastic changes in the FPC were facilitated by the subgoal strategy, suggesting that goal-striving, using effective coaching, optimizes the FPC for goal persistence.Generalization of persistency detector to other tasks. We tested the performance of the left FPC structure-based persistency detector that was trained on the ToH task retrospectively in a ARTICLE COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY | https://doi.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Plastic frontal pole cortex structure related to individual persistence for goal achievement

Hosoda

Tsujimoto²,

Tatekawa

et al. 2020

Commun Biol

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“…In combination with the findings of statistically significant age-vs-DTI-metrics correlations, the present results highlight the necessity of considering age effects in related studies. Specifically, in studies including adult subjects covering large age span (Welcome and Joanisse, 2014 ; Boltzmann et al, 2017 ), possible age effects should be considered carefully, otherwise spurious results possibly reflecting age-effects, rather than the effect under investigation, may be obtained.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, the effects of microstructural changes from early to mid-adulthood, if there are any, have not been considered carefully in related studies. For instance, in some studies including adult subjects covering large age span (e.g., of 19–59 years in the study by Welcome and Joanisse ( 2014 ) and of 25–58 years in the study by Boltzmann et al ( 2017 ), possible age effects were not specially considered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microstructural Changes of the Human Brain from Early to Mid-Adulthood

Tian

2017

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Despite numerous studies on the microstructural changes of the human brain throughout life, we have indeed little direct knowledge about the changes from early to mid-adulthood. The aim of this study was to investigate the microstructural changes of the human brain from early to mid-adulthood. We performed two sets of analyses based on the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data of 111 adults aged 18–55 years. Specifically, we first correlated age with skeletonized fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD) and radial diffusivity (RD) at global and regional level, and then estimated individuals’ ages based on each DTI metric using elastic net, a kind of multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) method that aims at selecting the model that achieves the best trade-off between goodness of fit and model complexity. We observed statistically significant negative age-vs-FA correlations and relatively less changes of MD. The negative age-vs-FA correlations were associated with negative age-vs-AD and positive age-vs-RD correlations. Regional negative age-vs-FA correlations were observed in the bilateral genu of the corpus callosum (CCg), the corticospinal tract (CST), the fornix and several other tracts, and these negative correlations may indicate the earlier changes of the fibers with aging. In brain age estimation, the chronological-vs-estimated-age correlations based on FA, MD, AD and RD were R = 0.62, 0.44, 0.63 and 0.69 (P = 0.002, 0.008, 0.002 and 0.002 based on 500 permutations), respectively, and these results indicate that even the microstructural changes from early to mid-adulthood alone are sufficiently specific to decode individuals’ ages. Overall, the current results not only demonstrated statistically significant FA decreases from early to mid-adulthood and clarified the driving factors of the FA decreases (RD increases and AD decreases, in contrast to increases of both measures in late-adulthood), but highlighted the necessity of considering age effects in related studies.

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“…However, a relatively small and focal change in anatomy could theoretically produce widespread functional changes, and therefore these effects need not be accompanied by large-scale anatomical remodeling. Indeed, a small number of past studies in human subjects have reported focal changes in white matter after training of reading skills 32,65 , but past work has not employed the intensive training paradigm used here (see also 33 ). Alternatively, the widespread effects may reflect general mechanisms of learning during an intensive educational experience, and therefore may not be specific to the curriculum of this reading intervention.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

White matter plasticity and reading instruction: Widespread anatomical changes track the learning process

Huber

Donnelly

Rokem

et al. 2018

Preprint

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White matter tissue properties correlate with children's performance across domains ranging from reading, to math, to executive function. We use a longitudinal intervention design to examine experience-dependent growth in reading skills and white matter in a group of grade school aged, struggling readers. Diffusion MRI data were collected at regular intervals during an 8-week, intensive reading intervention. These measurements reveal large-scale changes throughout a collection of white matter tracts, in concert with growth in reading skill. Additionally, we identify tracts whose properties predict reading skill but remain fixed throughout the intervention, suggesting that some anatomical properties may stably predict the ease with which a child learns to read, while others dynamically reflect the effects of experience. These results underscore the importance of considering recent experience when interpreting cross-sectional anatomy-behavior correlations. Widespread changes throughout the white matter may be a hallmark of rapid plasticity associated with an intensive learning experience.peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not . http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/268979 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Feb. 22, 2018; 2 Skilled reading requires orchestration of a large cortical network, and individual differences in reading performance have been linked to the properties of white matter tracts connecting portions of this network specialized for processing visual, acoustic, and semantic features [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] .Although individual differences in white matter are thought to reflect the joint influence of genetics and experience [10][11][12] , white matter properties are often held to underlie variation in performance and to causally influence individual learning trajectories [13][14][15][16] . A number of recent studies, working within this framework, have identified features of the white matter that predict reading outcomes in dyslexia 17 , and reading-related skills, like phonological awareness, in prereading children 14,18,19 . The implication of these observations is that underlying anatomical differences may predestine certain individuals to struggle with learning to read. In this view, differences in white matter properties could be considered a reflection of intrinsic deficits, which might be relatively resistant to remediation, but which could plausibly be used for early identification of individuals in need of extra educational support 20 .Successfully relating anatomical differences with behavioral outcomes requires an understanding of the timescale over which white matter tissue properties exhibit experiencedependent change, and the anatomical specificity of these effects. White matter plasticity, including activity-dependent myelination and oligodendrocyte proliferation, has been observed in animal models over the time-scale of days to weeks [21][22][23][24] , and these effect...

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Structural changes in functionally illiterate adults after intensive training

Cited by 18 publications

References 111 publications

Plastic frontal pole cortex structure related to individual persistence for goal achievement

Plastic frontal pole cortex structure related to individual persistence for goal achievement

Microstructural Changes of the Human Brain from Early to Mid-Adulthood

White matter plasticity and reading instruction: Widespread anatomical changes track the learning process

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