Chen Wen, He Yong, Gao Yang, Zhang Cuiping, Chen Chuansheng, Bi Suyu, Yang Pin, Wang Yiwen, Wang Wenjing
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 Jan 27;12(1):e0170660. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170660. eCollection 2017.
Chinese calligraphic handwriting (CCH) is a traditional art form that requires high levels of concentration and motor control. Previous research has linked short-term training in CCH to improvements in attention and memory. Little is known about the potential impacts of long-term CCH practice on a broader array of executive functions and their potential neural substrates. In this cross-sectional study, we recruited 36 practitioners with at least 5 years of CCH experience and 50 control subjects with no more than one month of CCH practice and investigated their differences in the three components of executive functions (i.e., shifting, updating, and inhibition). Valid resting-state fMRI data were collected from 31 CCH and 40 control participants. Compared with the controls, CCH individuals showed better updating (as measured by the Corsi Block Test) and inhibition (as measured by the Stroop Word-Color Test), but the two groups did not differ in shifting (as measured by a cue-target task). The CCH group showed stronger resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) than the control group in brain areas involved in updating and inhibition. These results suggested that long-term CCH training may be associated with improvements in specific aspects of executive functions and strengthened neural networks in related brain regions.
中国书法是一种传统艺术形式，需要高度的专注力和运动控制能力。先前的研究已将短期的中国书法训练与注意力和记忆力的改善联系起来。关于长期练习中国书法对更广泛的执行功能及其潜在神经基础的潜在影响，人们所知甚少。在这项横断面研究中，我们招募了36名有至少5年中国书法经验的练习者和50名练习中国书法不超过1个月的对照者，并调查了他们在执行功能的三个组成部分（即转换、更新和抑制）方面的差异。从31名中国书法练习者和40名对照参与者那里收集了有效的静息态功能磁共振成像数据。与对照组相比，中国书法练习者在更新（通过科西块测试衡量）和抑制（通过斯特鲁普文字-颜色测试衡量）方面表现更好，但两组在转换（通过线索-目标任务衡量）方面没有差异。中国书法练习组在涉及更新和抑制的脑区中显示出比对照组更强的静息态功能连接（RSFC）。这些结果表明，长期的中国书法训练可能与执行功能特定方面的改善以及相关脑区神经网络的强化有关。
