BRAYN - Abstract presentation
We are please to announce that our Sean Arthur Cully will be presenting our work at the next BRAYN - Brainstorm Assembly for Young Neuroscientists meeting, to be held in Catania (Italy), Sept. 30 - Oct. 2, 2026. You can read more about BRAYN 2026 here.
Title: Divergence between MP2RAGE and MPRAGE for detecting learning-induced structural brain changes.
Speaker: Sean Arthur Cully
September 30, 18:00
Abstract: Motor skill training can produce neuroplastic changes observable in vivo by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, the choice of acquisition sequence may affect inferences about the nature of these changes. Here, we use a longitudinal fine-motor skill learning data set (n=63) with up to 7 weekly-collected brain scans at 7 Tesla with the magnetisation-prepared 2 rapid acquisition gradient echoes (MP2RAGE) sequence to investigate whether any changes in grey matter volume and cortical thickness of the pre- and postcentral gyri can be observed over the study period. Additionally, we recovered magnetisation-prepared rapid gradient echo (MPRAGE) images from the MP2RAGE images, enabling comparisons ofestimates derived from these widely used acquisition sequences. Participants learned to perform a configural sequence task using their nondominant left hand and did so in conjunction with the weekly MRI sessions. We extracted grey matter volume and cortical thickness from the brain images and fit multivariate Bayesian multilevel regression models to assess morphological changes in the right hemisphere, where learning-related changes are expected to happen to a greater extent, and the left hemisphere, where they are not. We find substantially greater changes in grey matter volume and cortical thickness in the right,compared to the left, hemisphere precentral and postcentral gyri, consistent with learning-induced brain plasticity. However, these effects were not invariant to the choice betweenMP2RAGE and MPRAGE: the direction of effects was opposite in the right hemisphere depending on the sequence. These results highlight that even relatively short-term motor learning may induce observable neuroplasticity effects. However, the observed divergence between acquisition sequences suggests that we may be led to different, even opposite, conclusions regarding potential underlying neuroplasticity mechanisms at play.
