Diffusion MRI of Short-Term Spatial Memory Related Brain Plasticity

Ido Tavor¹, Yaniv Sagi¹, Shir Hofstetter¹, Efrat Sasson¹, Yaniv Assaf¹

Neuroimaging studies of brain plasticity reveal long-term learning related structural changes in several brain regions. Animal studies revealed that short term micro-structural changes can be observed with diffusion MRI. Here, we study the diffusion MRI changes in a short term spatial memory task in humans. Subjects underwent two MRI scans separated by two hours of a learning session. We found that DTI parameters had changed in several brain regions, including the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, amygdala and insula. The main result of this work is that DTI can follow on learning-induced micro-structural tissue changes, already 2 hours following the training episode.