Solesio-Jofre Elena, Beets Iseult A M, Woolley Daniel G, Pauwels Lisa, Chalavi Sima, Mantini Dante, Swinnen Stephan P
Movement Control and Neuroplasticity Research Group, Department of Movement Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2018 Feb 6;10:25. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2018.00025. eCollection 2018.
Recent work in young adults has demonstrated that motor learning can modulate resting state functional connectivity. However, evidence for older adults is scarce. Here, we investigated whether learning a bimanual tracking task modulates resting state functional connectivity of both inter- and intra-hemispheric regions differentially in young and older individuals, and whether this has behavioral relevance. Both age groups learned a set of complex bimanual tracking task variants over a 2-week training period. Resting-state and task-related functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were collected before and after training. Our analyses revealed that both young and older adults reached considerable performance gains. Older adults even obtained larger training-induced improvements relative to baseline, but their overall performance levels were lower than in young adults. Short-term practice resulted in a modulation of resting state functional connectivity, leading to connectivity increases in young adults, but connectivity decreases in older adults. This pattern of age differences occurred for both inter- and intra-hemispheric connections related to the motor network. Additionally, long-term training-induced increases were observed in intra-hemispheric connectivity in the right hemisphere across both age groups. Overall, at the individual level, the long-term changes in inter-hemispheric connectivity correlated with training-induced motor improvement. Our findings confirm that short-term task practice shapes spontaneous brain activity differentially in young and older individuals. Importantly, the association between changes in resting state functional connectivity and improvements in motor performance at the individual level may be indicative of how training shapes the short-term functional reorganization of the resting state motor network for improvement of behavioral performance.
近期针对年轻人的研究表明，运动学习能够调节静息态功能连接。然而，针对老年人的相关证据却很稀少。在此，我们研究了学习一项双手跟踪任务是否会在年轻人和老年人中对半球间和半球内区域的静息态功能连接产生不同的调节作用，以及这是否与行为表现相关。两个年龄组在为期2周的训练期内学习了一组复杂的双手跟踪任务变体。在训练前后分别收集了静息态和与任务相关的功能磁共振成像扫描数据。我们的分析显示，年轻人和老年人在任务表现上都有显著提升。相对于基线水平，老年人甚至获得了更大的训练诱导改善，但他们的整体表现水平低于年轻人。短期练习导致了静息态功能连接的调节，使得年轻人的连接性增加，而老年人的连接性降低。这种年龄差异模式在与运动网络相关的半球间和半球内连接中均出现。此外，在两个年龄组中，均观察到右半球半球内连接在长期训练后有所增加。总体而言，在个体层面上，半球间连接的长期变化与训练诱导的运动改善相关。我们的研究结果证实，短期任务练习会在年轻人和老年人中对自发脑活动产生不同的塑造作用。重要的是，静息态功能连接变化与个体运动表现改善之间的关联可能表明训练如何塑造静息态运动网络的短期功能重组以改善行为表现。
