Dataset Information

Cerebral Metabolic Changes During Visuomotor Adaptation Assessed Using Quantitative fMRI.

ABSTRACT: The brain retains a lifelong ability to adapt through learning and in response to injury or disease-related damage, a process known as functional neuroplasticity. The neural energetics underlying functional brain plasticity have not been thoroughly investigated experimentally in the healthy human brain. A better understanding of the blood flow and metabolic changes that accompany motor skill acquisition, and which facilitate plasticity, is needed before subsequent translation to treatment interventions for recovery of function in disease. The aim of the current study was to characterize cerebral blood flow (CBF) and oxygen consumption (relative CMRO2) responses, using calibrated fMRI conducted in 20 healthy participants, during performance of a serial reaction time task which induces rapid motor adaptation. Regions of interest (ROIs) were defined from areas showing task-induced BOLD and CBF responses that decreased over time. BOLD, CBF and relative CMRO2 responses were calculated for each block of the task. Motor and somatosensory cortices and the cerebellum showed statistically significant positive responses to the task compared to baseline, but with decreasing amplitudes of BOLD, CBF, and CMRO2 response as the task progressed. In the cerebellum, there was a sustained positive BOLD response in the absence of a significant CMRO2 increase from baseline, for all but the first task blocks. This suggests that the brain may continue to elevate the supply energy even after CMRO2 has returned to near baseline levels. Relying on BOLD fMRI data alone in studies of plasticity may not reveal the nature of underlying metabolic responses and their changes over time. Calibrated fMRI approaches may offer a more complete picture of the energetic changes supporting plasticity and learning.

SUBMITTER: Foster C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7227432 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Cerebral Metabolic Changes During Visuomotor Adaptation Assessed Using Quantitative fMRI.

Foster Catherine C Steventon Jessica J JJ Helme Daniel D Tomassini Valentina V Wise Richard G RG

Frontiers in physiology 20200508

The brain retains a lifelong ability to adapt through learning and in response to injury or disease-related damage, a process known as functional neuroplasticity. The neural energetics underlying functional brain plasticity have not been thoroughly investigated experimentally in the healthy human brain. A better understanding of the blood flow and metabolic changes that accompany motor skill acquisition, and which facilitate plasticity, is needed before subsequent translation to treatment interv ...[more]

PMID: 32457648

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Project description:Astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) must adapt to several environmental challenges including microgravity, elevated carbon dioxide (CO2), and isolation while performing highly controlled movements with complex equipment. Head down tilt bed rest (HDBR) is an analog used to study spaceflight factors including body unloading and headward fluid shifts. We recently reported how HDBR with elevated CO2 (HDBR+CO2) affects visuomotor adaptation. Here we expand upon this work and examine the effects of HDBR+CO2 on brain activity during visuomotor adaptation. Eleven participants (34 ± 8 years) completed six functional MRI (fMRI) sessions pre-, during, and post-HDBR+CO2. During fMRI, participants completed a visuomotor adaptation task, divided into baseline, early, late and de-adaptation. Additionally, we compare brain activity between this NASA campaign (30-day HDBR+CO2) and a different campaign with a separate set of participants (60-day HDBR with normal atmospheric CO2 levels, n = 8; 34.25 ± 7.9 years) to characterize the specific effects of CO2. Participants were included by convenience. During early adaptation across the HDBR+CO2 intervention, participants showed decreasing activation in temporal and subcortical brain regions, followed by post- HDBR+CO2 recovery. During late adaptation, participants showed increasing activation in the right fusiform gyrus and right caudate nucleus during HDBR+CO2; this activation normalized to baseline levels after bed rest. There were no correlations between brain changes and adaptation performance changes from pre- to post HDBR+CO2. Also, there were no statistically significant differences between the HDBR+CO2 group and the HDBR controls, suggesting that changes in brain activity were due primarily to bed rest rather than elevated CO2. Five HDBR+CO2 participants presented with optic disc edema, a sign of Spaceflight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS). An exploratory analysis of HDBR+CO2 participants with and without signs of SANS revealed no group differences in brain activity during any phase of the adaptation task. Overall, these findings have implications for spaceflight missions and training, as ISS missions require individuals to adapt to altered sensory inputs over long periods in space. Further, this is the first study to verify the HDBR and elevated CO2 effects on the neural correlates of visuomotor adaptation.

Project description:Visuomotor adaptation arises when reaching in an altered visual environment, where one's seen hand position does not match their felt (i.e., proprioceptive) hand position in space. Here, we asked if proprioceptive training benefits visuomotor adaptation, and if these benefits arise due to implicit (unconscious) or explicit (conscious strategy) processes. Seventy-two participants were divided equally into 3 groups: proprioceptive training with feedback (PTWF), proprioceptive training no feedback (PTNF), and Control (CTRL). The PTWF and PTNF groups completed passive proprioceptive training, where a participant's hand was moved to an unknown reference location and they judged the felt position of their unseen hand relative to their body midline on every trial. The PTWF group received verbal feedback with respect to their response accuracy on the middle 60% of trials, whereas the PTNF did not receive any feedback during training. The CTRL group did not complete proprioceptive training and instead sat quietly during this time. Following proprioceptive training or time delay, all three groups reached when seeing a cursor that was rotated 30° clockwise relative to their hand motion. The experiment ended with participants completing a series of no-cursor reaches to assess implicit and explicit adaptation. Results indicated that the PTWF group improved the accuracy of their sense of felt hand position following proprioceptive training. However, this improved proprioceptive acuity (i.e., the accuracy of their sense of felt hand) did not benefit visuomotor adaptation, as all three groups showed similar visuomotor adaptation across rotated reach training trials. Visuomotor adaptation arose implicitly, with minimal explicit contribution for all three groups. Together, these results suggest that passive proprioceptive training does not benefit, nor hinder, the extent of implicit visuomotor adaptation established immediately following reach training with a 30° cursor rotation.

Dataset Information

Cerebral Metabolic Changes During Visuomotor Adaptation Assessed Using Quantitative fMRI.

Publications

Cerebral Metabolic Changes During Visuomotor Adaptation Assessed Using Quantitative fMRI.

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