Abstract
Introduction: Prior studies have demonstrated training-induced changes in the healthy adult brain. Yet, it remains unclear how the injured brain responds to cognitive training months-to-years after injury. Methods: Sixty individuals with chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI) were randomized into either strategy-based (N = 31) or knowledge-based (N = 29) training for 8 weeks. We measured cortical thickness and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) before training, immediately posttraining, and 3 months posttraining. Results: Relative to the knowledge-based training group, the cortical thickness of the strategy-based training group showed diverse temporal patterns of changes over multiple brain regions (pvertex <.05, pcluster <.05): (1) increases followed by decreases, (2) monotonic increases, and (3) monotonic decreases. However, network-based statistics (NBS) analysis of rsFC among these regions revealed that the strategy-based training group induced only monotonic increases in connectivity, relative to the knowledge-based training group (|Z| > 1.96, pNBS < 0.05). Complementing the rsFC results, the strategy-based training group yielded monotonic improvement in scores for the trail-making test (p <.05). Analyses of brain–behavior relationships revealed that improvement in trail-making scores were associated with training-induced changes in cortical thickness (pvertex <.05, pcluster <.05) and rsFC (pvertex <.05, pcluster <.005) within the strategy-based training group. Conclusions: These findings suggest that training-induced brain plasticity continues through chronic phases of TBI and that brain connectivity and cortical thickness may serve as markers of plasticity.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | e00687 |
Journal | Brain and Behavior |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 2017 |
Keywords
- functional connectivity
- magnetic resonance imaging
- morphometry
- plasticity
- rehabilitation
- traumatic brain injury
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Behavioral Neuroscience