Abstract
Lakhani and colleagues trained healthy adults on ten visuomotor sessions (10,000 movements) and measured myelin water fraction before and after — significant increases appeared in task-dependent regions (left intraparietal sulcus, left parieto-occipital sulcus), with learning rate inversely related to plastic change in the IPS.
Lakhani, B., Borich, M. R., Jackson, J. N., & Wahl, M. (2016). Motor skill acquisition promotes human brain myelin plasticity. Neural Plasticity, 2016, 7526135. DOI
Key findings
- Myelin water fraction — Quantitative myelin marker rose after skilled practice in regions tied to the trained task — not only grey-matter or diffusion-anisotropy proxies.
- Learning rate link — Slower skill acquisition correlated with greater myelin change in the left IPS — plasticity and pace are not simple twins.
- Experience-dependent myelin — Supports the broader claim that myelin is modifiable by training in healthy adults, extending rodent skill-learning work.
- Task specificity — Plasticity tracked visuomotor training regions — not global white-matter uplift from any effort narrative.
Limits
Small healthy-adult sample — visuomotor paradigm only; generalisation to cognitive observation reps or verbal coaching is inferential. Myelin water fraction is an indirect myelin proxy — not direct histology. Ten-session protocol is intensive — Club reps should stay bounded, not heroic.
Application
When you design a lead measure, treat bounded repetition at real intensity as the biological substrate — not narrative intention. Pair Myelin effort · Mental muscle soreness with one weekly rep that costs enough to matter.