The Occupational Brain Plasticity Study Using Dynamic Functional Connectivity Between Multi-Networks: Take Seafarers for Example

Weiming Zeng,Shunjie Guo,Yuhu Shi

doi:10.1109/access.2019.2946322

Weiming Zeng, Shunjie Guo + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2019.2946322

Copy DOI

Journal: IEEE Access	Publication Date: Jan 1, 2019
Citations: 6	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Shanghai Maritime University

Abstract

The exploration of brain plasticity through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology is a hot topic in the field of brain science research. In order to explore the specificity of the brain functional networks of seafarers and the influence of marine environment on seafarer brain functional networks. In this paper, nine resting-state brain functional networks of seafarers were studied by using group independent component analysis with intrinsic reference method based on the full use of fMRI priori information, and the static and dynamic functional connections between these brain networks were statistically analyzed. The results showed that there was a significant difference between seafarers and non-seafarers in the dynamic functional connectivity of individual subjects. Furthermore, the dynamic functional connection patterns between the two groups of subjects corresponding to the nine brain networks were extracted by using the sliding time window and clustering methods. It was found through analysis that the brain functional networks underwent specific functional recombination and transformation during the process of brain activity, and showed dynamic functional connectivity states which were significantly different from those of non-seafarers. The research results have important reference value for revealing the specificity of the brain function neural activity of seafarer population and the brain plasticity of seafarer occupation.

Highlights

It is known to all that the working conditions of seafarers on the sea have large differences compared with the terrestrial environment, which makes the seafarers vulnerable to the natural and working environments as well as many other complex factors, and leads to the functional connectivity (FC) changes of seafarer’s brain [1], [2]
This indicates that the variation among the nine brain functional networks (BFNs) between seafarers and non-seafarers cannot be reflected at the group level, either from the perspective of static FC (SFC) or dynamic FC (DFC)
Based on the intrinsic prior information, nine resting-state BFNs in seafarers and non-seafarers were detected by using the group ICA (GICA)-IR method in this study, and statistical analysis was performed on the SFCs and DFCs among the nine BFNs of subjects in the two groups at group level and individual level respectively

Summary

Introduction

It is known to all that the working conditions of seafarers on the sea have large differences compared with the terrestrial environment, which makes the seafarers vulnerable to the natural and working environments as well as many other complex factors, and leads to the functional connectivity (FC) changes of seafarer’s brain [1], [2]. These changes influence the physical and psychological health of seafarers themselves, and seriously affect the safety of navigation operation. Wang et al used the sample entropy to explore the functional complexity of seafarers’ brain, and the results showed that the seafarer occupation impacted the brain’s complexity [6]

Methods

Results

Conclusion