Flight Training–Induced Changes in Orbitofrontal–Putamen Functional Connectivityand Their Behavioral Associations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66438/skh.dssr.v2i4.99Keywords:
putamen, functional connectivity, superior frontal gyrus, orbital part, magnetic resonance imaging, flight cadetsAbstract
Flight operation is a complex skill that relies on multiple cognitive functions. Previous studies of experience-dependent brain plasticity have primarily focused on athletes and other populations engaged in extensive motor training, whereas longitudinal changes in brain functional coupling associated with flight training remain poorly understood. The putamen, a major input structure of the basal ganglia, plays important roles in habit formation, reward processing, and fine motor control, all of which are closely related to flight performance. In this longitudinal resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) study, data were collected at two time points between 2019 and 2022 from 25 male flight cadets and 23 male students from the same cohort with no flight-training experience. Whole-brain seed-based functional connectivity analysis was performed using the putamen as the seed region. A mixed-design analysis of variance was used to examine group × time interaction effects, followed by correlation analyses with performance on a psychomotor tracking task.
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