Longitudinal evaluation of training-induced neural plasticity

Neuroplasticity is reflected in the great capacity of the human brain to adapt quickly and efficiently to a broad variety of environmental factors, and comprises an essential prerequisite for learning. In line with the idea of a plastic human brain, previous neuroimaging studies in the field of motor learning have shown that learning a new skill evokes substantial neuroanatomical and neurofunctional changes. Moreover, there is strong evidence that these motor skill training-induced neuronal adaptations occur across the entire lifespan, from birth to old age. However, the neuronal underpinnings of training-induced adaptations in subjects in the middle adulthood have received little scientific attention. Furthermore, previous studies investigating training-induced neuroplasticity focussed rather on strict training protocols than on physical activities practiced as a leisure activity. By aligning a longitudinal study design with two measurement time-points, the present dissertation thesis aims to explore the dynamic processes of brain anatomy and brain function induced by a highly complex motor training practiced as leisure activity in participants between the age of 40 to 60 years. The investigated motor learning task consisted of golf training practiced as leisure activity. Learning to play golf puts high demands on motor and cognitive abilities and is a physical leisure activity that is not restricted to a certain age group. The first study focussed on anatomical changes induced by the motor-training, whereas the second study focussed on changes of functional neuronal recruitment patterns while mentally performing a golf swing. In order to investigate the neuroanatomical underpinnings of training-induced neuroplasticity in golf novices, the first study used structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the method of voxel-based morphometry. As a main result, the 40 hours of golf practice, performed as a leisure physical activity with highly individual training protocols, have shown to be associated with gray matter increases in a task-relevant cortical network. These substantial neuroanatomical changes were revealed in regions of the sensorimotor cortex and areas belonging to the dorsal stream. It is suggested that these brain regions play a crucial role during the process of motor learning and the control of visuomotor coordination. The control subjects did not show any gray matter changes in these or in other brain areas. Interestingly, those golf novices who practiced most intensively within the 40-hour period demonstrated the strongest neuroanatomical changes in a critical region of the dorsal information stream. These findings demonstrate that a physical leisure activity induces training-dependent changes in gray matter and let assume that a strict and controlled training protocol is not necessary for training-induced adaptations of gray matter. The second study aimed to investigate changes of neuro-functional recruitment patterns that can be ascribed to the golf training, by using the method of functional MRI (fMRI) and a motor imagery task. The analyses revealed increased hemodynamic responses during the mental rehearsal of a golf swing in non-primary cortical motor areas, sub-cortical motor areas and parietal regions in the novice golfers and the control subjects. This result complements previous mental imagery research showing the involvement of motor areas while mentally rehearsing a complex movement, especially in subjects with low skill level. More importantly, only the golf novice group showed changes between the two measurement time-points. Hemodynamic responses were decreased in non-primary motor areas after the 40 hours golf practice interval. Thus, the results indicate that in the barely studied population of middle-aged adults, a complex physical leisure activity induces functional neuroplasticity. This finding supports the idea that an improvement of skill level is associated with a more efficiently working neuronal network

New Historicism

Zusammenfassung: Der New Historicism trat in den frühen 1980er Jahren in den USA in erster Linie als Gegenbe­we­gung zum textimmanenten Ansatz des New Criticism in Erschei­nung und hat sich seither zu einer der einflussreichsten Methoden der amerika­nischen Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften entwickelt. Neben der englischen Renaissance haben sich die englische Romantik und die amerikanische Kulturge­schichte des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts zu wich­tigen Forschungsschwer­punkten entwickelt. Der Einfluss der Methode greift jedoch weiter. Viele ihrer Annahmen und Vorgehensweisen entsprechen inzwischen gängi­ger kritischer Praxis in allen Bereichen der Literaturgeschichte. Initiiert durch Stephen Greenblatt, Louis Montrose und einige andere Do­zen­­ten der University of Cali­fornia, Berkeley, propagiert die Methode eine Rück­be­sin­nung auf das vom Strukturalismus und Poststrukturalismus ausgeklam­merte gesellschaftliche Feld, in dem literarische und dramatische Werke ursprüng­lich produziert und rezipiert wurden. Der kulturelle Kontext wird dabei nicht als Hin­ter­grund eines im Zent­rum des Interesses stehenden literarischen Textes ver­stan­den. Vielmehr wird Lite­ratur als ein Teil des komplexen Gefüges von Prakti­ken, Institutionen und Überzeu­gungen gelesen, welches eine Kultur als Ganzes aus­macht. Dieses Gefüge gilt es in Erfahrung zu bringen, um so den Austausch zwi­schen literarischen Texten und anderen gesellschaftlichen Praktiken nach­voll­zieh­bar zu machen

Shakespeare's belated Lucrece

Shakespeare’s retelling of the old Lucretia story in The Rape of Lucrece is marked by belatedness. Written in the wake of many classical, medieval and Renaissance writers, the poem follows a long literary tradition. It moreover confronts a debate, initiated by Augustine, about Lucretia’s role in the rape, the morality of her suicide and the legend’s larger historical significance. By the sixteenth century, Lucretia had also become a popular motif in the visual arts. For Shakespeare as a latecomer to the age-old preoccupation with Lucretia, this entails an awareness of both the danger and the potential the story holds. My essay is concerned with Shakespeare’s approach to the moral debate about Lucretia. This approach depends, first of all, on the privileged access his poem offers to Lucrece’s private thoughts and emotions, but also on the way his Lucrece enters into dialogue with many themes and motifs employed in earlier versions of her story, with the contemporary genre of the female complaint and with representations of Lucretia in the visual arts. Shakespeare’s poem dramatizes the attempt to rehabilitate Lucrece’s character and establish her authority over her story. At the same time, it emphasizes the contested nature of this authority

Returning from the ‘infernal deepes’: Fiammetta’s Early Modern English Stepsisters

This essay focuses on the female complaint in vogue in England in the second half of the sixteenth century and on Shakespeare’s critical revision of this model in his epyllion The Rape of Lucrece (1593). A short historical overview discusses the textual origins, an analysis of three widely popular complaints illustrates the typical pattern of female complaints: an adulteress (a royal concubine and historical figure) returns from the dead to plead for sympathy and restore her reputation among the living. While English female complaints have often been discussed in relation to Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris as an important model, the genre is here related to his Fiammetta . The confrontation is illuminating for the decisive contrasts in the fictional setting: the English complaints are public, driven by vanity and worldly ambition rather than love, and declared to be the work of male authors. This distinguishes them from Fiammetta’s ostensibly private, anonymous and hence disinterested account of her passion for Panfilo, of which she herself is the living author. The Rape of Lucrece is then shown to exploit both models in an attempt to retell the legend of the Roman Lucretia in a way at once informed and innovative, proving the young Shakespeare a worthy author. Her private complaint allows his Lucrece to free herself from the suspicion of collusion or pride while ostensibly making her the true author of her story