A macroscopic link between interhemispheric tract myelination and cortico-cortical interactions during action reprogramming

Alberto Lazari (), Piergiorgio Salvan, Lennart Verhagen, Michiel Cottaar, Daniel Papp, Olof Jens van der Werf, Bronwyn Gavine, James Kolasinski, Matthew Webster, Charlotte J. Stagg, Matthew F. S. Rushworth and Heidi Johansen-Berg ()
Additional contact information
Alberto Lazari: University of Oxford
Piergiorgio Salvan: University of Oxford
Lennart Verhagen: University of Oxford
Michiel Cottaar: University of Oxford
Daniel Papp: University of Oxford
Olof Jens van der Werf: Maastricht University
Bronwyn Gavine: University of Oxford
James Kolasinski: Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre
Matthew Webster: University of Oxford
Charlotte J. Stagg: University of Oxford
Matthew F. S. Rushworth: University of Oxford
Heidi Johansen-Berg: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Myelination has been increasingly implicated in the function and dysfunction of the adult human brain. Although it is known that axon myelination shapes axon physiology in animal models, it is unclear whether a similar principle applies in the living human brain, and at the level of whole axon bundles in white matter tracts. Here, we hypothesised that in humans, cortico-cortical interactions between two brain areas may be shaped by the amount of myelin in the white matter tract connecting them. As a test bed for this hypothesis, we use a well-defined interhemispheric premotor-to-motor circuit. We combined TMS-derived physiological measures of cortico-cortical interactions during action reprogramming with multimodal myelin markers (MT, R1, R2* and FA), in a large cohort of healthy subjects. We found that physiological metrics of premotor-to-motor interaction are broadly associated with multiple myelin markers, suggesting interindividual differences in tract myelination may play a role in motor network physiology. Moreover, we also demonstrate that myelination metrics link indirectly to action switching by influencing local primary motor cortex dynamics. These findings suggest that myelination levels in white matter tracts may influence millisecond-level cortico-cortical interactions during tasks. They also unveil a link between the physiology of the motor network and the myelination of tracts connecting its components, and provide a putative mechanism mediating the relationship between brain myelination and human behaviour.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31687-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-31687-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31687-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().