The Effect of Professional Ballet Training on Brain Structure: A Tale of Two Fractional Anisotropy Metrics

This research investigated structural brain changes associated with long-term professional ballet dance training. The primary measure used was fractional anisotropy (FA), a diffusion tensor (DTI) derived index of water molecule diffusion, which putatively quantifies main neural tract efficiency. Dancers had higher FA (p = .062, FWE corrected), which ostensibly reflects greater axonal ability to communicate. Dancers also had differing FA lateralization (p = .038, FWE corrected). Large percentages (30% to 55%) of variability in these metrics were shared by years of dance training, implicating a substantive impact of dance training on brain structure. Other DTI-derived indices where used to help characterize FA (i.e. axial diffusion, radial diffusion, and mean diffusion), and the results implicate enhanced conduction from altered tract properties, perhaps increased myelination. In addition, dancers had greater global grey matter and white matter volume, large percentages in the variability of which were also shared by years of training.