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Performance-Related Increases in Hippocampal N-acetylaspartate (NAA) Induced by Spatial Navigation Training Are Restricted to BDNF Val Homozygotes

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Author

  • Martin Lövdén
  • Sabine Schaefer
  • Hannes Noack
  • Martin Kanowski
  • Joern Kaufmann
  • Claus Tempelmann
  • Nils Christian Bodammer
  • Simone Kuehn
  • Hans-Jochen Heinze
  • Ulman Lindenberger
  • Emrah Duezel
  • Lars Baeckman
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Summary, in English

Recent evidence indicates experience-dependent brain volume changes in humans, but the functional and histological nature of such changes is unknown. Here, we report that adult men performing a cognitively demanding spatial navigation task every other day over 4 months display increases in hippocampal N-acetylaspartate (NAA) as measured with magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Unlike measures of brain volume, changes in NAA are sensitive to metabolic and functional aspects of neural and glia tissue and unlikely to reflect changes in microvasculature. Training-induced changes in NAA were, however, absent in carriers of the Met substitution in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene, which is known to reduce activity-dependent secretion of BDNF. Among BDNF Val homozygotes, increases in NAA were strongly related to the degree of practice-related improvement in navigation performance and normalized to pretraining levels 4 months after the last training session. We conclude that changes in demands on spatial navigation can alter hippocampal NAA concentrations, confirming epidemiological studies suggesting that mental experience may have direct effects on neural integrity and cognitive performance. BDNF genotype moderates these plastic changes, in line with the contention that gene-context interactions shape the ontogeny of complex phenotypes.

Publishing year

2011

Language

English

Pages

1435-1442

Publication/Series

Cerebral Cortex

Volume

21

Issue

6

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Topic

  • Psychology

Keywords

  • brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)
  • cognitive training
  • hippocampus
  • N-acetylaspartate (NAA)
  • spatial navigation

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1460-2199