White Matter Plasticity in Dancers and Musicians

This dissertation examined training-related brain plasticity by comparing white matter (WM) structure between dancers and musicians and relating the structural changes to dance and music abilities. We focused on the primary motor pathways, to identify potential structural differences between whole-body dance training and specific-effector music training. To this purpose, highly trained dancers and musicians, matched for years of training, were tested on a novel dance imitation task, melody discrimination, and rhythm reproduction. Participants were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). WM was analyzed at a whole-brain level in Study 1, using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Study 2 used probabilistic tractography to examine the descending motor pathways from the hand, leg, trunk and head regions. In Study 1, dancers showed increased diffusivity and reduced anisotropy in comparison to musicians in regions including the descending motor pathways, the superior longitudinal fasciculus and the corpus callosum, predominantly in the right hemisphere. Consistent with this, in Study 2, dancers had increased diffusivity and greater volume in all portions of the right descending motor pathways, whereas musicians had increased anisotropy, especially in the right hand and trunk/arm tracts. Importantly, in both studies, DTI metrics were positively related with dance and negatively with melody performance. In Study 2, DTI metrics also were negatively associated with age of training start, indicating a direct relation between the structural changes observed and training. Our findings indicate that different types of long-term training have distinct effects on brain structure. In particular, dance training, which engages the whole body, appears to enhance connectivity among a broad range of cortical regions, possibly by increasing axonal diameter and the heterogeneity of fiber orientation. In contrast, music training seems to increase the coherence and packing of the connections linked to the trained effector(s). This dissertation is novel in comparing brain structure between two groups of highly trained performers and in examining multiple DTI metrics concurrently. Further, in Study 2, we developed a novel methodology to segregate the motor cortex into regions corresponding to four main body parts, which could be used by other researchers interested in motor connectivity

The Benefits and Importance of Collaboration and Diversity in a Performing Arts Education

This thesis will explore the advantages of providing students with a diversified Performing Arts Education in which collaboration between art forms enhances students’ overall artistic abilities. In exploration of this topic, data was collected regarding how the training in each performing art form uniquely benefits a student. The information was gathered from interviews with Kindergarten through Twelfth-grade performing arts teachers, as well as from research which addresses how a student’s capabilities can be enhanced through a Performing Arts Education. The results of implementing differing teaching methods involving a collaboration between art forms show that a diversified Performing Arts Education is more beneficial for students than education in a single performing art

Naturalistic music and dance : Cortical phase synchrony in musicians and dancers

Expertise in music has been investigated for decades and the results have been applied not only in composition, performance and music education, but also in understanding brain plasticity in a larger context. Several studies have revealed a strong connection between auditory and motor processes and listening to and performing music, and music imagination. Recently, as a logical next step in music and movement, the cognitive and affective neuro-sciences have been directed towards expertise in dance. To understand the versatile and overlapping processes during artistic stimuli, such as music and dance, it is necessary to study them with continuous naturalistic stimuli. Thus, we used long excerpts from the contemporary dance piece Carmen presented with and without music to professional dancers, musicians, and laymen in an EEG laboratory. We were interested in the cortical phase synchrony within each participant group over several frequency bands during uni- and multimodal processing. Dancers had strengthened theta and gamma synchrony during music relative to silence and silent dance, whereas the presence of music decreased systematically the alpha and beta synchrony in musicians. Laymen were the only group of participants with significant results related to dance. Future studies are required to understand whether these results are related to some other factor (such as familiarity to the stimuli), or if our results reveal a new point of view to dance observation and expertise.Peer reviewe

Drum training induces long-term plasticity in the cerebellum and connected cortical thickness

It is unclear to what extent cerebellar networks show long-term plasticity and accompanied changes in cortical structures. Using drumming as a demanding multimodal motor training, we compared cerebellar lobular volume and white matter microstructure, as well as cortical thickness of 15 healthy non-musicians before and after learning to drum, and 16 age matched novice control participants. After 8 weeks of group drumming instruction, 3 ×30 minutes per week, we observed the cerebellum significantly changing its grey (volume increase of left VIIIa, relative decrease of VIIIb and vermis Crus I volume) and white matter microstructure in the inferior cerebellar peduncle. These plastic cerebellar changes were complemented by changes in cortical thickness (increase in left paracentral, right precuneus and right but not left superior frontal thickness), suggesting an interplay of cerebellar learning with cortical structures enabled through cerebellar pathways

Mild Cognitive Deficits from Cancer Treatments

https://digitalcommons.psjhealth.org/other_pubs/1081/thumbnail.jp

White matter microstructural changes in short-term learning of a continuous visuomotor sequence

Efficient neural transmission is crucial for optimal brain function, yet the plastic potential of white matter (WM) has long been overlooked. Growing evidence now shows that modifications to axons and myelin occur not only as a result of long-term learning, but also after short training periods. Motor sequence learning (MSL), a common paradigm used to study neuroplasticity, occurs in overlapping learning stages and different neural circuits are involved in each stage. However, most studies investigating short-term WM plasticity have used a pre-post design, in which the temporal dynamics of changes across learning stages cannot be assessed. In this study, we used multiple magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at 7 T to investigate changes in WM in a group learning a complex visuomotor sequence (LRN) and in a control group (SMP) performing a simple sequence, for five consecutive days. Consistent with behavioral results, where most improvements occurred between the two first days, structural changes in WM were observed only in the early phase of learning (d1-d2), and in overall learning (d1-d5). In LRNs, WM microstructure was altered in the tracts underlying the primary motor and sensorimotor cortices. Moreover, our structural findings in WM were related to changes in functional connectivity, assessed with resting-state functional MRI data in the same cohort, through analyses in regions of interest (ROIs). Significant changes in WM microstructure were found in a ROI underlying the right supplementary motor area. Together, our findings provide evidence for highly dynamic WM plasticity in the sensorimotor network during short-term MSL

Bilateral engagement of the occipito-temporal cortex in response to dance kinematics in experts

Previous evidence has shown neuroplastic changes in brain anatomy and connectivity associated with the acquisition of professional visuomotor skills. Reduced hemispherical asymmetry was found in the sensorimotor and visual areas in expert musicians and athletes compared with non-experts. Moreover, increased expertise with faces, body, and objects resulted in an enhanced engagement of the occipito-temporal cortex (OTC) during stimulus observation. The present study aimed at investigating whether intense and extended practice with dance would result in an enhanced symmetric response of OTC at an early stage of action processing. Expert ballet dancers and non-dancer controls were presented with videos depicting ballet steps during EEG recording. The observation of the moving dancer elicited a posterior N2 component, being larger over the left hemisphere in dancers than controls. The source reconstruction (swLORETA) of the negativity showed the engagement of the bilateral inferior and middle temporal regions in experts, while right-lateralized activity was found in controls. The dancers also showed an early P2 and enhanced P300 responses, indicating faster stimulus processing and subsequent recognition. This evidence seemed to suggest expertise-related increased sensitivity of the OTC in encoding body kinematics. Thus, we speculated that long-term whole-body practice would result in enriched and refined action processin

Evidence for a sensitive period for musical training

The aim of the current dissertation was to investigate evidence for a sensitive period for musical training. The first study examined behavioural performance on an auditory-motor synchronization task and cognitive abilities in three groups: early-trained musicians, late-trained musicians, and non-musicians. The early-trained musicians were better able to reproduce the auditory rhythms, even after controlling for differences in musical experience using a matching paradigm. Both musician groups outperformed the non-musician group. The second study used these same groups of participants and their performance data to investigate differences in grey matter structure associated with early musical training. Several different structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging analysis techniques were used to examine differences in grey matter between groups and results suggest greater grey matter volume and cortical surface area in the right ventral pre-motor cortex among early-trained musicians. Extracted values from this region of difference correlated with auditory-motor synchronization performance and age of onset in the musician groups. Previous literature supports the role of the pre-motor cortex in the auditory rhythm task, as well as timed motor movements (Chen, Penhune, & Zatorre, 2008). The third study used a larger, un-matched sample of musicians to examine the relationship between age of onset of musical training as a continuous variable and performance on the auditory-motor synchronization task. In addition, individual working memory scores and years of formal training were considered as task correlates. These findings suggest the presence of a non-linear relationship between age of onset of musical training and auditory-motor synchronization performance. Working memory scores seemed to predict task performance, regardless of when musical training began; however, years of formal training was a significant predictor of task performance only among those who began at an earlier age. Taken together, these findings support the hypothesis of a sensitive period for musical training and shed light on the complexity of the relationship between brain maturation processes and training-induced plasticity

Exploring the Relation Between Musical and Dance Sophistication and Musical Groove Perception

Listening to groovy music is an enjoyable experience and a ubiquitous human behavior in some cultures. Specifically, many listeners agree that high-groove songs are enjoyable, familiar, and likable compared to low-groove songs. While the pleasurable and dance-inducing effects of musical groove listening seem omnipresent, what is less known is how subjective feelings towards music, individual musical or dance experiences, or more objective musical perception abilities are correlated with the way we hear music with groove. Therefore, the present online study aimed to evaluate how musical and dance sophistication relates to musical groove perception. One-hundred and twenty-four participants completed an online study where they rated 20 total high- and low-groove songs and completed the Goldsmith Musical Sophistication Index, the Goldsmith Dance Sophistication Index, the Beat and Meter Sensitivity Task, and a modified short version of the Profile for Music Perception Skills. Our results show that perceptual abilities, musical training, body awareness, participatory dance experience, and performance on a variety of musical skills tasks could predict rating differences between high- and low-groove music. Overall, these findings support that listeners’ individual experiences and innate abilities may shape their perception of musical groove, although other causal directions are possible as well. This research helps better understand the correlates and possible causes of musical groove perception in a wide range of listeners