Motor skill learning induces changes in white matter microstructure and myelination

Sampaio-Baptista, C. et al. (2013) Motor skill learning induces changes in white matter microstructure and myelination. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(50), pp. 19499-19503. (doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3048-13.2013) (PMID:24336716) (PMCID:PMC3858622)

Abstract

Learning a novel motor skill is associated with well characterized structural and functional plasticity in the rodent motor cortex. Furthermore, neuroimaging studies of visuomotor learning in humans have suggested that structural plasticity can occur in white matter (WM), but the biological basis for such changes is unclear. We assessed the influence of motor skill learning on WM structure within sensorimotor cortex using both diffusion MRI fractional anisotropy (FA) and quantitative immunohistochemistry. Seventy-two adult (male) rats were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (skilled reaching, unskilled reaching, and caged control). After 11 d of training, postmortem diffusion MRI revealed significantly higher FA in the skilled reaching group compared with the control groups, specifically in the WM subjacent to the sensorimotor cortex contralateral to the trained limb. In addition, within the skilled reaching group, FA across widespread regions of WM in the contralateral hemisphere correlated significantly with learning rate. Immunohistological analysis conducted on a subset of 24 animals (eight per group) revealed significantly increased myelin staining in the WM underlying motor cortex in the hemisphere contralateral (but not ipsilateral) to the trained limb for the skilled learning group versus the control groups. Within the trained hemisphere (but not the untrained hemisphere), myelin staining density correlated significantly with learning rate. Our results suggest that learning a novel motor skill induces structural change in task-relevant WM pathways and that these changes may in part reflect learning-related increases in myelination.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust. C.S.-B. was the recipient of an FCT fellowship, and H.J.-B. was supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Sampaio Baptista, Dr Cassandra
• Authors: Sampaio-Baptista, C., Khrapitchev, A. A., Foxley, S., Schlagheck, T., Scholz, J., Jbabdi, S., DeLuca, G. C., Miller, K. L., Taylor, A., Thomas, N., Kleim, J., Sibson, N. R., Bannerman, D., and Johansen-Berg, H.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience
• Journal Name: Journal of Neuroscience
• Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
• ISSN: 0270-6474
• ISSN (Online): 1529-2401
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2013 Sampaio-Baptista et al.
• First Published: First published in Journal of Neuroscience 33(50): 19499-19503
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License