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Tracking the changes in motor learning as experts learn a novel ballet over 34 weeks using fMRI: implications for dance therapy in Parkinson’s patients| old_uid | 12049 |
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| title | Tracking the changes in motor learning as experts learn a novel ballet over 34 weeks using fMRI: implications for dance therapy in Parkinson’s patients |
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| start_date | 2013/02/01 |
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| schedule | 11h30 |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle de conférences |
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| summary | We were interested in examining the time course of the evolution when beginning to learn a new dance to a novel piece of music and it’s associated neural changes in the brain. To date we have scanned eleven professional dancers from the National Ballet of Canada with ten control dancers. Today I will talk about the first cohort of five professional dancers who participated in four fMRI scanning sessions over eight months of the ballet season. We scanned the dancers four times while learning and performing a new choreographed piece. We examined their brain activation using fMRI by playing them a selected 1-minute piece of music from their ballet employing a blocked design (5 epochs of 1 minute with alternations of a 30-sec fixation period) at four time points over 34-weeks. Subjects were asked to visualize dancing their part while listening to this piece of music. At the time of the first scanning session, 4 rehearsals of the piece was rehearsed. The control subjects were also tested at this time period but they had no rehearsals and had no exposure to the music before scanning. The second scanning session occurred one week later, after a total of 9 rehearsals. The third scanning session was completed 7 weeks after initial acquisition of the dance. At the last scanning session (34-weeks) the professional dancers performed the ballet a total of 32 times. Results revealed a significant increase of BOLD signal, across the sessions in a network of brain regions including bilateral auditory cortex to supplementary motor cortex (SMA) over the first three imaging sessions but a reduction in the fourth at 34-weeks. This reduction in activity was not observed in basal ganglia (caudate nucleus). These results suggest that as we learn a motor sequence in time to music, neuronal activity increases until 7 weeks and then decreases at 34-weeks, possibly when it is overlearned, but in contrast the BG activation is maintained at least until 34-weeks. Over this talk we will examine many aspects of time within the 1-minute piece of music and over the 34-weeks of performance as well as using this paradigm as a tool for examining cortical plasticity in normal and people with Parkinson’s disease (see Page et al 2009 reading). |
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| responsibles | Soulier |
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