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The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training

Dance – as a ritual, therapy, and leisure activity – has been known for thousands of years. Today, dance is increasingly used as therapy for cognitive and neurological disorders such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Surprisingly, the effects of dance training on the healthy young brain are not w...

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Autores principales: Burzynska, Agnieszka Z., Finc, Karolina, Taylor, Brittany K., Knecht, Anya M., Kramer, Arthur F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5711858/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29230170
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00566
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author Burzynska, Agnieszka Z.
Finc, Karolina
Taylor, Brittany K.
Knecht, Anya M.
Kramer, Arthur F.
author_facet Burzynska, Agnieszka Z.
Finc, Karolina
Taylor, Brittany K.
Knecht, Anya M.
Kramer, Arthur F.
author_sort Burzynska, Agnieszka Z.
collection PubMed
description Dance – as a ritual, therapy, and leisure activity – has been known for thousands of years. Today, dance is increasingly used as therapy for cognitive and neurological disorders such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Surprisingly, the effects of dance training on the healthy young brain are not well understood despite the necessity of such information for planning successful clinical interventions. Therefore, this study examined actively performing, expert-level trained college students as a model of long-term exposure to dance training. To study the long-term effects of dance training on the human brain, we compared 20 young expert female Dancers with normal body mass index with 20 age- and education-matched Non-Dancers with respect to brain structure and function. We used diffusion tensor, morphometric, resting state and task-related functional MRI, a broad cognitive assessment, and objective measures of selected dance skill (Dance Central video game and a balance task). Dancers showed superior performance in the Dance Central video game and balance task, but showed no differences in cognitive abilities. We found little evidence for training-related differences in brain volume in Dancers. Dancers had lower anisotropy in the corticospinal tract. They also activated the action observation network (AON) to greater extent than Non-Dancers when viewing dance sequences. Dancers showed altered functional connectivity of the AON, and of the general motor learning network. These functional connectivity differences were related to dance skill and balance and training-induced structural characteristics. Our findings have the potential to inform future study designs aiming to monitor dance training-induced plasticity in clinical populations.
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spelling pubmed-57118582017-12-11 The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training Burzynska, Agnieszka Z. Finc, Karolina Taylor, Brittany K. Knecht, Anya M. Kramer, Arthur F. Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Dance – as a ritual, therapy, and leisure activity – has been known for thousands of years. Today, dance is increasingly used as therapy for cognitive and neurological disorders such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Surprisingly, the effects of dance training on the healthy young brain are not well understood despite the necessity of such information for planning successful clinical interventions. Therefore, this study examined actively performing, expert-level trained college students as a model of long-term exposure to dance training. To study the long-term effects of dance training on the human brain, we compared 20 young expert female Dancers with normal body mass index with 20 age- and education-matched Non-Dancers with respect to brain structure and function. We used diffusion tensor, morphometric, resting state and task-related functional MRI, a broad cognitive assessment, and objective measures of selected dance skill (Dance Central video game and a balance task). Dancers showed superior performance in the Dance Central video game and balance task, but showed no differences in cognitive abilities. We found little evidence for training-related differences in brain volume in Dancers. Dancers had lower anisotropy in the corticospinal tract. They also activated the action observation network (AON) to greater extent than Non-Dancers when viewing dance sequences. Dancers showed altered functional connectivity of the AON, and of the general motor learning network. These functional connectivity differences were related to dance skill and balance and training-induced structural characteristics. Our findings have the potential to inform future study designs aiming to monitor dance training-induced plasticity in clinical populations. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-11-27 /pmc/articles/PMC5711858/ /pubmed/29230170 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00566 Text en Copyright © 2017 Burzynska, Finc, Taylor, Knecht and Kramer. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Burzynska, Agnieszka Z.
Finc, Karolina
Taylor, Brittany K.
Knecht, Anya M.
Kramer, Arthur F.
The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training
title The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training
title_full The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training
title_fullStr The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training
title_full_unstemmed The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training
title_short The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training
title_sort dancing brain: structural and functional signatures of expert dance training
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5711858/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29230170
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00566
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