Rapid and widespread white matter plasticity during an intensive reading intervention

• Published in: Nature communications 2018-06, Vol.9 (1), p.2260-13, Article 2260
• Main Authors: Huber, Elizabeth, Donnelly, Patrick M., Rokem, Ariel, Yeatman, Jason D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/378/2649/1442; 631/378/2649/1773; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiology; Brain Mapping; Child; Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Executive function; Female; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Intervention; Learning - physiology; Magnetic resonance imaging; Male; multidisciplinary; Nerve Net - diagnostic imaging; Nerve Net - physiology; Neuronal Plasticity - physiology; Plastic properties; Plasticity; Properties (attributes); Reading; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Substantia alba; White Matter - diagnostic imaging; White Matter - physiology
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04627-5

White matter tissue properties are known to correlate with performance across domains ranging from reading to math, to executive function. Here, we use a longitudinal intervention design to examine experience-dependent growth in reading skills and white matter in grade school-aged, struggling readers. Diffusion MRI data were collected at regular intervals during an 8-week, intensive reading intervention. These measurements reveal large-scale changes throughout a collection of white matter tracts, in concert with growth in reading skill. Additionally, we identify tracts whose properties predict reading skill but remain fixed throughout the intervention, suggesting that some anatomical properties stably predict the ease with which a child learns to read, while others dynamically reflect the effects of experience. These results underscore the importance of considering recent experience when interpreting cross-sectional anatomy–behavior correlations. Widespread changes throughout the white matter may be a hallmark of rapid plasticity associated with an intensive learning experience. White matter properties correlate with cognitive performance in a number of domains. Here the authors show that altering a child’s educational environment though a targeted intervention program induces rapid, large-scale changes in the white matter, and that these changes track the learning process.