RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Individual behavioral trajectories shape whole-brain connectivity in mice
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.03.25.485806
DO 10.1101/2022.03.25.485806
A1 Jadna Bogado Lopes
A1 Anna N. Senko
A1 Klaas Bahnsen
A1 Daniel Geisler
A1 Eugene Kim
A1 Michel Bernanos
A1 Diana Cash
A1 Stefan Ehrlich
A1 Anthony C. Vernon
A1 Gerd Kempermann
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/03/26/2022.03.25.485806.abstract
AB It is widely assumed that our actions shape our brains and that the resulting connections determine who we are. To test this idea in a reductionist setting, in which genes and environment are controlled, we investigated differences in neuroanatomy and structural covariance by ex vivo structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in mice whose behavioral activity was continuously tracked for 3 months in a large, enriched environment. We confirmed that environmental enrichment increases mouse hippocampal volumes. Stratifying the enriched group according to individual longitudinal behavioral trajectories, however, revealed striking differences in mouse brain structural covariance in continuously highly active mice compared to those whose trajectories showed signs of habituating activity. Network-based statistics identified distinct sub-networks of murine structural covariance underlying these differences in behavioral activity. Together, these results reveal that differentiated behavioral trajectories of mice in an enriched environment are associated with differences in brain connectivity.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.