Abstract
Plasticity of white matter tracts is thought to be essential for cognitive development and academic skill acquisition in children. However, a dearth of high-quality diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data measuring longitudinal changes with learning, as well as methodological difficulties in multi-time point tract identification have limited our ability to investigate plasticity of specific white matter tracts. Here, we examine learning-related changes of white matter tracts innervating inferior parietal, prefrontal and temporal regions following an intense 2-month math tutoring program. DTI data were acquired from 18 third grade children, both before and after tutoring. A novel fiber tracking algorithm based on a White Matter Query Language (WMQL) was used to identify three sections of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) linking frontal and parietal (SLF-FP), parietal and temporal (SLF-PT) and frontal and temporal (SLF-FT) cortices, from which we created child-specific probabilistic maps. The SLF-FP, SLF-FT, and SLF-PT tracts identified with the WMQL method were highly reliable across the two time points and showed close correspondence to tracts previously described in adults. Notably, individual differences in behavioral gains after 2 months of tutoring were specifically correlated with plasticity in the left SLF-FT tract. Our results extend previous findings of individual differences in white matter integrity, and provide important new insights into white matter plasticity related to math learning in childhood. More generally, our quantitative approach will be useful for future studies examining longitudinal changes in white matter integrity associated with cognitive skill development.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00429-014-0975-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Understanding how plasticity of white matter tracts contributes to learning is a fundamental question in developmental cognitive neuroscience, and lies at the foundation of understanding complex interactions between brain structure and function
Our study focused on a narrow age range of children all in grade 3, a developmental stage important for learning and mastering basic arithmetic facts (Fuchs et al 2009)
We found that the correlation between efficiency change and fractional anisotropy (FA) change in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF)-FT was still significant when controlling for FA change in the left SLF-PT and SLF: the fronto-parietal tract (SLF-FP) (r = 0.607, p = 0.016, df = 13)
Summary
Understanding how plasticity of white matter tracts contributes to learning is a fundamental question in developmental cognitive neuroscience, and lies at the foundation of understanding complex interactions between brain structure and function. The long-range white matter pathways linking parietal, temporal and prefrontal cortex undergo protracted developmental changes, which may interact with cognitive and academic skill development by regulating the speed and synchrony of signal transmission between brain regions. Better quantitative characterization of learning-related changes in key white matter tracts, and their relation with individual differences in performance improvement, is important as it may improve our understanding of the mechanisms by which brain plasticity supports academic skill development. We use a 2-month arithmetic training paradigm in combination with novel quantitative diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) analysis methods to examine white matter plasticity associated with mathematics learning in a tight age range of 7- to 9-yearold children
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