Abstract
Magnetic resonance imaging studies using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) detected structural changes in the human brain within periods of months or weeks. The underlying molecular mechanisms of VBM findings remain unresolved. We showed that simple visual stimulation by an alternating checkerboard leads to instant, short-lasting alterations of the primary and secondary visual cortex detected by VBM. The rapidness of occurrence (i.e., within 10 minutes) rather excludes most of the proposed physiological mechanism such as neural or glial cell genesis/degeneration or synapse turnover. We therefore favour cerebral fluid shifts to be the underlying correlate of the here observed VBM gray matter changes. Fast onset gray matter changes might be one important explanation for the inconsistency of VBM study results that often raise concern in regard to the validity of presented data. This study shows that changes detectable by VBM may occur within a few minutes after physiological stimulation and must be considered in future VBM experiments to avoid misinterpretation of results.
Highlights
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies of the human brain suggest detecting structural alterations of gray matter (GM) in response to external stimuli or states of disease
We showed that simple visual stimulation by an alternating checkerboard leads to instant, short-lasting alterations of the primary and secondary visual cortex detected by VBM
Functional activity and VBM detected GM changes are both located in the same anatomic area, but the exact localization is slightly different between functional and structural imaging
Summary
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies of the human brain suggest detecting structural alterations of gray matter (GM) in response to external stimuli or states of disease. VBM is a whole brain technique capable of revealing subtle changes in GM by applying voxel wise statistics [1]. In the past years VBM has become a very popular method to describe GM structural changes in the human brain. Many different studies showed that diseases, training, or medication induces GM changes within weeks, months, or years. A few studies even detected earlier cerebral changes within 7 days in volunteers who learned to juggle [2] or within 5 days after repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the superior temporal gyrus [3]. One study even demonstrated GM volume increase of the ventral putamen within a few hours after application of the D2 receptor blocker haloperidol [4]
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