Alterations Of Functional And Structural Properties Of The Brain During Integrative Body-Mind Training

The brain plasticity refers to the brain’s ability to modify its function and structure in order to adapt new environments. Tough it has been proved that even the adult brain has functional and structural plasticities, there are few studies about brain functional and structural alterations in different phases with a same training method. Current study focused on brain functional and structural plasticities in different training stages with IBMT (Integrative Body Mind Training) which has been demonstrated that it could improve one’s emotion state, immunity level and properties of spontaneous EEG.The main findings of this study as follows:1. SPECT was used to measure the cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes between before and after5-day IBMT in experiment one. The results showed IBMT could strengthen CBF in the brain regions related to self-regulation, executive control, and interception, including Orbit frontal gyus, ventral ACC, dorsal ACC, insula, striatal and et al.2. After it has been suggested IBMT could impact brain function by experiment one. DTI (Diffusion Tensor Imaging) was used to measure the changes of fractional anisotropy (FA), Axial Diffusivity (AD) and Radial Diffusivity (RD) in white matter, meanwhile high resolution T1weight structure images were acquired to investigate gray matter alterations between before and after2-week IBMT. The results showed that AD value, which reflects axonal morphology, decreased in corpus callosum, rona radiata, sagittal stratum etc. during2-week IBMT. No differences were found in the FA value which indicated integrity of white matter, RD value which describes myelinization and density of gray matter.3. With the same techniques to experiment two, FA, AD, RD, and gray matter density were investigated from the subjects before and after4-week IBMT. The results showed FA increase. AD and RD decrease in corpus callosum, rona radiata and superior longitudinal fasciculus. Differing from other trainings which increase FA value with only RD decrease,4-week IBMT enhanced FA value with AD and RD decrease simultaneously. Different neural mechanisms may exist in two processes of FA increase. The density of gray matter still didn’t change after4week IBMT.4. In experiment four, the density of gray matter and functional connectivity which could reflect brain aging were collected from long-term IBMT practicers and control group whose mean age is about67. The results showed long-term IBMT practicers have greater gray matter density in striatum and stronger correlation coefficient between striatum and dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus, which may underlie improvement of attention and self-control.