Apr 26 2024Tohoku University What is known, however, is that the dilation and constriction cycles of blood vessels, or vasomotion, spontaneously occur in the brain, a process that likely contributes to enhancing the circulation of energetic nutrients and clearing wasteful materials.
Mice were presented with 15-minute visual training sessions interleaved with 1-hour resting periods for 4 times per day. With such spaced training, the amplitude of the synchronized vasomotion gradually increased. Interestingly, the visually induced vasomotion was not confined to the area of the cerebral cortex responsible for visual information processing. In other words, synchronized vasomotion spread throughout the whole brain.
While it's long been known that changes in neuron connections support learning and memory, the plasticity of vasomotion hasn't been described before. Matsui and his colleagues found that a specific visual pattern makes the eyes move more, and this eye movement improvement depends on changes in the brain's cerebellum. The researchers also observed that blood vessel activity in the cerebellum synchronized with this optokinetic motor learning.