Enhanced neural synchrony associated with long-term ballroom dance training

Xiao Wu; Xiao Wang; Xue-Jing Lu; Ya-Zhuo Kong; Li Hu

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120301

Enhanced neural synchrony associated with long-term ballroom dance training

Neuroimage. 2023 Sep:278:120301. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120301. Epub 2023 Jul 29.

Authors

Xiao Wu¹, Xiao Wang², Xue-Jing Lu³, Ya-Zhuo Kong⁴, Li Hu⁵

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
² School of Art, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China.
³ Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
⁴ CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. Electronic address: kongyz@psych.ac.cn.
⁵ Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. Electronic address: huli@psych.ac.cn.

PMID: 37524169
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120301

Abstract

Long-term dance training offers numerous benefits, including improvements in physical health, posture, body coordination, and mental health and well-being. Since dance is an art form of body-to-body communication, professional dancers may share feelings and thoughts on dance with their partners, owing to their shared training experiences. Considering this perspective, one may expect that professional dancers would demonstrate pronounced neural similarities when viewing dancing videos, which could be associated with their training duration. To test these hypotheses, we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data while presenting ballroom dancing and neutral video clips with long durations (∼100 s each) to 41 professional ballroom dancers (19 pairs of dance partners) and 39 age- and sex-matched nondancers. Our findings revealed that dancers exhibited broader and stronger neural similarities across the whole brain when watching dancing video clips, as compared to the control group. These increased neural similarities could be interpreted in at least two distinct ways. First, neural similarities in certain brain regions within the motor control circuit (i.e., frontal cortical-basal ganglia-thalamic circuit) were significantly correlated with dance-related information (e.g., dance partners' cooperation duration), which reinforced the impact of long-term dance training on neural synchronization. Second, neural similarities in other brain regions (e.g., memory-related brain regions) were significantly correlated with subjects' impression of the viewed videos (i.e., whether they have watched before, familiarity, and liking), which may not necessarily be directly linked to long-term dance training. Altogether, our study provided solid evidence for synchronized neural mechanisms in professional dancers due to long-term dance training.

Keywords: Dance training; Frontal cortical-basal ganglia-thalamic circuits; Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); Intersubject correlation (ISC); Intersubject representational similarity analysis (ISRSA); Neural similarity.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Basal Ganglia
Brain*
Dancing*
Emotions
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Recognition, Psychology