The Dancing Brain: Structural and Functional Signatures of Expert Dance Training.

Agnieszka Z Burzynska,Anya M Knecht,Brittany K Taylor,Brittany K Taylor,Brittany K Taylor,Karolina Finc,Arthur F Kramer,Arthur F Kramer

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00566

Abstract

Dance – as a ritual, therapy, and leisure activity – has been known for thousands of years. Today, dance is increasingly used as therapy for cognitive and neurological disorders such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Surprisingly, the effects of dance training on the healthy young brain are not well understood despite the necessity of such information for planning successful clinical interventions. Therefore, this study examined actively performing, expert-level trained college students as a model of long-term exposure to dance training. To study the long-term effects of dance training on the human brain, we compared 20 young expert female Dancers with normal body mass index with 20 age- and education-matched Non-Dancers with respect to brain structure and function. We used diffusion tensor, morphometric, resting state and task-related functional MRI, a broad cognitive assessment, and objective measures of selected dance skill (Dance Central video game and a balance task). Dancers showed superior performance in the Dance Central video game and balance task, but showed no differences in cognitive abilities. We found little evidence for training-related differences in brain volume in Dancers. Dancers had lower anisotropy in the corticospinal tract. They also activated the action observation network (AON) to greater extent than Non-Dancers when viewing dance sequences. Dancers showed altered functional connectivity of the AON, and of the general motor learning network. These functional connectivity differences were related to dance skill and balance and training-induced structural characteristics. Our findings have the potential to inform future study designs aiming to monitor dance training-induced plasticity in clinical populations.

Highlights

Dance is a pleasurable and captivating activity that involves motor, cognitive, visuospatial, social, and emotional engagement
The aim of the current study is to provide a comprehensive description of the effects of versatile, expert-level dance training on the structure and function of the healthy human brain, and on broadly defined cognition
Dancers reported a significantly greater number of hours spent on dancing practice per week, and years of regular/intensive practice compared to Non-Dancers (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Dance is a pleasurable and captivating activity that involves motor, cognitive, visuospatial, social, and emotional engagement. Practiced for thousands of years in rituals and as a leisure activity, the long-term effects of systematic dance training on cognition, and brain structure and function are not well understood. There is increasing interest in dance as a therapeutic intervention for various clinical groups, ranging from developmental disorders such as Down syndrome (Lifshitz-Vahav et al, 2016), to neurological disorders such as schizophrenia (Martin et al, 2016) and mood disorder (depression; Meekums et al, 2015), neuromotor disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (McNeely et al, 2015), to dementia prevention and management (Ballesteros et al, 2015; Adam et al, 2016). Similar trials using neuroimaging to study the effects of dance in neurodegenerative disease patients are still in the early stages (e.g., Earhart et al, 2015)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion