The Resting State Brain Functional Characteristics Of Dancers' Sensorimotor System

Dance is a way to fully mobilize the individual's perception and athletic ability.Dancers learn these movements through observation and imitation.In the course of long-term dance exercise,dancer's sensorimotor system is optimized by constantly translating perceived information into actions.The corresponding characteristics of the brain function of dancers' sensorimotor system have been explored in some studies,but it is not yet completely clear.The exploration of this issue will help us to understand the neural mechanism of dance movement.This study aims to investigate differences in the spontaneous brain activity and functional connectivity in the sensorimotor system between dancers and non-dancers,to further support the functional alteration in people with expertise.Regional Homogeneity(ReHo),Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuation(ALFF),fractional Amplitude of low frequency fluctuation(fALFF),seed-based Functional Connectivity(FC)and graph theory as methods for assessing Resting-State functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging(RS-fMRI)data,were used to reveal the resting-state brain function in these participants.Compared to the control group,dancer group showed significantly ReHo increases in bilateral postcentral gyrus,left superior temporal gyrus,right precentral gyrus,right middle occipital gyrus and increased fALFF in bilateral precentral gyrus.Dancers group also showed increased ALFF in left middle temporal gyrus,bilateral precentral gyrus,bilateral inferior frontal gyrus,left postcentral gyrus,left inferior temporal gyrus,right middle occipital gyrus,right superior temporal gyrus,left middle frontal gyrus and decreased ALFF in the left lingual gyrus.Furthermore,the results of the FC analysis revealed enhanced connections between right precentral gyrus and left precentral gyrus and between right precentral gyrus and bilateral postcentral gyrus.Dancers also showed altered FC between the inferior frontal gyrus and temporal,parietal regions.And the clustering coefficient,local efficiency and global efficiency of functional network of dancer group are higher than the control group.However,the characteristic path length of functional network of dancer group is shorter than the control group.The functional modulation of dancers' sensorimotor system may be associated with the long-term dancing experience,which may lead to the changes in action perception,motor learning and movement control to enhance the formation of the mode to observe,implement and adjust complex actions,forming a more efficient action execution network.Our study has provided a supporting evidence for dancing-induced brain plasticity.