Prof. Marco Taubert | Predispositions and exercise-induced plasticity in the human brain
Cognitive Neurology Lecture
- Date: Feb 10, 2023
- Time: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Prof. Marco Taubert
- Cognition & Action Research Group, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany
- Location: MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
- Room: Wilhelm Wundt Room (A400) + Zoom Meeting (hybrid mode)
- Host: Department of Neurology
The human neocortex is essential for cognition, action and perception.
Its complex morphology is tightly regulated by genetic factors, but is
also malleable by environmental influences throughout the lifespan.
Physical activity (e.g., aerobic exercise or learning new motor skills)
can modulate cortical areas and underlying white matter pathways, but
recent studies also highlight the fundamental role of more stable
morphological features of the neocortex in learning and performance. In
this talk I will focus on motor learning of a dynamic balance task. Our
results show that inter-individual differences in motor learning can be
predicted by variations in cortical folding in the supplemental motor
area (SMA). The SMA is also affected by structural and functional
plasticity in response to motor learning. Thus, learning appears to be
influenced by both predispositions and plasticity (or the interaction
between the two), and their specific contributions manifest as spatially
coincident but distinct features of cortical structure.