Yotsumoto Yuko, Chang Li-Hung, Ni Rui, Pierce Russell, Andersen George J, Watanabe Takeo, Sasaki Yuka
Department of Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Komaba 3-8-1, Meguroku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan.
1] Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, 190 Thayer Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA [2] Education Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Yang Ming University, No. 155, Sec. 2, Linong Street, Beitou District, Taipei City 112, Taiwan.
Nat Commun. 2014 Nov 19;5:5504. doi: 10.1038/ncomms6504.
Visual perceptual learning (VPL) with younger subjects is associated with changes in functional activation of the early visual cortex. Although overall brain properties decline with age, it is unclear whether these declines are associated with visual perceptual learning. Here we use diffusion tensor imaging to test whether changes in white matter are involved in VPL for older adults. After training on a texture discrimination task for three daily sessions, both older and younger subjects show performance improvements. While the older subjects show significant changes in fractional anisotropy (FA) in the white matter beneath the early visual cortex after training, no significant change in FA is observed for younger subjects. These results suggest that the mechanism for VPL in older individuals is considerably different from that in younger individuals and that VPL of older individuals involves reorganization of white matter.
年轻受试者的视觉感知学习（VPL）与早期视觉皮层功能激活的变化有关。尽管大脑的整体特性会随着年龄的增长而衰退，但尚不清楚这些衰退是否与视觉感知学习有关。在这里，我们使用扩散张量成像来测试白质变化是否参与了老年人的VPL。在每天进行三个疗程的纹理辨别任务训练后，老年和年轻受试者的表现均有所改善。虽然老年受试者在训练后早期视觉皮层下方白质的分数各向异性（FA）有显著变化，但年轻受试者的FA没有显著变化。这些结果表明，老年人VPL的机制与年轻人有很大不同，且老年人的VPL涉及白质的重组。
