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Greater cerebellar gray matter volume in car drivers: an exploratory voxel-based morphometry study

Previous functional neuroimaging studies have identified multiple brain areas associated with distinct aspects of car driving in simulated traffic environments. Few studies, however, have examined brain morphology associated with everyday car-driving experience in real traffic. Thus, the aim of the...

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Autores principales: Sakai, Hiroyuki, Ando, Takafumi, Sadato, Norihiro, Uchiyama, Yuji
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5394485/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28417971
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep46526
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author Sakai, Hiroyuki
Ando, Takafumi
Sadato, Norihiro
Uchiyama, Yuji
author_facet Sakai, Hiroyuki
Ando, Takafumi
Sadato, Norihiro
Uchiyama, Yuji
author_sort Sakai, Hiroyuki
collection PubMed
description Previous functional neuroimaging studies have identified multiple brain areas associated with distinct aspects of car driving in simulated traffic environments. Few studies, however, have examined brain morphology associated with everyday car-driving experience in real traffic. Thus, the aim of the current study was to identify gray matter volume differences between drivers and non-drivers. We collected T1-weighted structural brain images from 73 healthy young adults (36 drivers and 37 non-drivers). We performed a whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analysis to examine between-group differences in regional gray matter volume. Compared with non-drivers, drivers showed significantly greater gray matter volume in the left cerebellar hemisphere, which has been associated with cognitive rather than motor functioning. In contrast, we found no brain areas with significantly greater gray matter volume in non-drivers compared with drivers. Our findings indicate that experience with everyday car driving in real traffic is associated with greater gray matter volume in the left cerebellar hemisphere. This brain area may be involved in abilities that are critical for driving a car, but are not commonly or frequently used during other daily activities.
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spelling pubmed-53944852017-04-20 Greater cerebellar gray matter volume in car drivers: an exploratory voxel-based morphometry study Sakai, Hiroyuki Ando, Takafumi Sadato, Norihiro Uchiyama, Yuji Sci Rep Article Previous functional neuroimaging studies have identified multiple brain areas associated with distinct aspects of car driving in simulated traffic environments. Few studies, however, have examined brain morphology associated with everyday car-driving experience in real traffic. Thus, the aim of the current study was to identify gray matter volume differences between drivers and non-drivers. We collected T1-weighted structural brain images from 73 healthy young adults (36 drivers and 37 non-drivers). We performed a whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analysis to examine between-group differences in regional gray matter volume. Compared with non-drivers, drivers showed significantly greater gray matter volume in the left cerebellar hemisphere, which has been associated with cognitive rather than motor functioning. In contrast, we found no brain areas with significantly greater gray matter volume in non-drivers compared with drivers. Our findings indicate that experience with everyday car driving in real traffic is associated with greater gray matter volume in the left cerebellar hemisphere. This brain area may be involved in abilities that are critical for driving a car, but are not commonly or frequently used during other daily activities. Nature Publishing Group 2017-04-18 /pmc/articles/PMC5394485/ /pubmed/28417971 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep46526 Text en Copyright © 2017, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Sakai, Hiroyuki
Ando, Takafumi
Sadato, Norihiro
Uchiyama, Yuji
Greater cerebellar gray matter volume in car drivers: an exploratory voxel-based morphometry study
title Greater cerebellar gray matter volume in car drivers: an exploratory voxel-based morphometry study
title_full Greater cerebellar gray matter volume in car drivers: an exploratory voxel-based morphometry study
title_fullStr Greater cerebellar gray matter volume in car drivers: an exploratory voxel-based morphometry study
title_full_unstemmed Greater cerebellar gray matter volume in car drivers: an exploratory voxel-based morphometry study
title_short Greater cerebellar gray matter volume in car drivers: an exploratory voxel-based morphometry study
title_sort greater cerebellar gray matter volume in car drivers: an exploratory voxel-based morphometry study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5394485/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28417971
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep46526
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