Individual behavioral trajectories shape whole-brain connectivity in mice

It is widely assumed that our actions shape our brains and that the resulting connections determine who we are. To test this idea in a reductionist setting, in which genes and environment are controlled, we investigated differences in neuroanatomy and structural covariance by ex vivo structural magn...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2023-01, Vol.12
Main Authors: Bogado Lopes, Jadna, Senko, Anna N, Bahnsen, Klaas, Geisler, Daniel, Kim, Eugene, Bernanos, Michel, Cash, Diana, Ehrlich, Stefan, Vernon, Anthony C, Kempermann, Gerd
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
adult neurogenesis
Analysis
Animals
Behavioral assessment
behavioral tracking
Brain - anatomy & histology
Brain Mapping - methods
Hippocampus
individuality
Magnetic resonance imaging
Methods
Mice
Neuroscience
structural covariance
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Summary:It is widely assumed that our actions shape our brains and that the resulting connections determine who we are. To test this idea in a reductionist setting, in which genes and environment are controlled, we investigated differences in neuroanatomy and structural covariance by ex vivo structural magnetic resonance imaging in mice whose behavioral activity was continuously tracked for 3 months in a large, enriched environment. We confirmed that environmental enrichment increases mouse hippocampal volumes. Stratifying the enriched group according to individual longitudinal behavioral trajectories, however, revealed striking differences in mouse brain structural covariance in continuously highly active mice compared to those whose trajectories showed signs of habituating activity. Network-based statistics identified distinct subnetworks of murine structural covariance underlying these differences in behavioral activity. Together, these results reveal that differentiated behavioral trajectories of mice in an enriched environment are associated with differences in brain connectivity.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.80379