Human neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that exercise influences the cortical structural plasticity as indexed by gray or white matter volume. It remains elusive, however, whether exercise affects cortical changes at the finer-grained myelination structure level. To answer this question, we scanned 28 elite golf players in comparison with control participants, using a novel neuroimaging technique-quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI). The data showed myeloarchitectonic plasticity in the left temporal pole of the golf players: the microstructure of this brain region of the golf players was better proliferated than that of control participants. In addition, this myeloarchitectonic plasticity was positively related to golfing proficiency. Our study has manifested that myeloarchitectonic plasticity could be induced by exercise, and thus, shed light on the potential benefits of exercise on brain health and cognitive enhancement.
Keywords: golfing proficiency; microstructure; qMRI; temporal pole.
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