Plasticity in Gray and White

By Bradley E. Alger, Ai-Hui Tang, Robyn M Javier, A. Kreitzer, Raymond A. Swanson, Anne-Lise Giraud, Evan S Deneris, S. Wyler, Robert J. Zatorre, Heidi Johansen-Berg. Nature Neuroscience, 2012

1,586 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Human brain imaging has identified structural changes in gray and white matter that occur with learning. However, ascribing imaging measures to underlying cellular and molecular events is challenging. Here we review human neuroimaging findings of structural plasticity and then discuss cellular and molecular level changes that could underlie observed imaging effects. Greater dialog between researchers in these different fields would help to facilitate cross-talk between cellular and systems level explanations of how learning sculpts brain structure.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Developmental Neuroscience, Neurology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f83e65bee7d35db3e12ab60c0c8e795b6599210

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Citations in the corpus

Are there specialized circuits for social cognition and are they unique to humans? (2013, background): “Sensorimotor gray matter, white matter, and activity all change as sensorimotor skills are learned [11,12,13 ] and so the same may hold in the social domain.”
The Development of Brain White Matter Microstructure (2018, background): “White matter microstructural development is susceptible to environmental influences and changes can be induced by learning or intense activity (Fields, 2008; Zatorre et al., 2012).”
Musical training as a framework for brain plasticity: behavior, function, and structure. (2012, background): “While themany possible mechanisms underlying structure-function relationships with neuroimaging methods are far from being understood (Zatorre et al., 2012), the multimodal nature of the data in this domain provides many testable hypotheses.”
What is normal in normal aging? Effects of Aging, Amyloid and Alzheimer’s Disease on the Cerebral Cortex and the Hippocampus (2014, background): “This theory is intriguing, but prompts difficult questions: First, both targeted, experimental cognitive interventions (Engvig et al., 2010; Zatorre et al., 2012) and lifespan mental activity (Valenzuela et al.”
Trajectories of cortical thickness maturation in normal brain development – The importance of quality control procedures (2015, neutral): “A gradual synaptic pruning of inefficient connections in childhood and adolescence could lead to a decrease in gray matter thickness (Huttenlocher, 1990; Zatorre et al., 2012).”
Oligodendrocyte Dynamics in the Healthy Adult CNS: Evidence for Myelin Remodeling (2013, background): “…is conceivable that adult-born OLs simply myelinate the previously unmyelinated axons in those regions, perhaps changing the functionality of that circuit and contributing in some way to neural plasticity (e.g., motor skills learning) (Fields, 2008; Richardson et al., 2011; Zatorre et al., 2012).”
Enhancing attention through training (2015, background): “A number of studies of network training have also found changes in white matter with practice [43–45,46 ].”
Considerations for conducting developmental neuroimaging research on mental health topics (2025, unknown): “One hypothesis is that the developmental trajectory of myelination limits sensitive periods for cognitive change [59].”