Effect of intermittent hypoxic training on hypoxia tolerance based on brain functional connectivity

Abstract

The difference of brain functional connectivity between hypoxic and normal states was studied. The impact of intermittent hypoxic training on the hypoxia tolerance of the brain was explored. Multivariable empirical mode decomposition was applied to extract common inherent modes of multichannel EEG adaptively instead of a priori selection of filter bandwidth, and the first two scales of intrinsic mode functions expressed the differences in brain connectivity. To quantify synchronization and search for consistent performance, coherence, phase locking value and synchronization likelihood were all utilized. Brain networks extracted from these synchronization measures all displayed that both local and global functional connectivity declined with increasing time in a hypoxic state. Furthermore, early hypoxia of the brain was represented on brain connectivity before mental fatigue was detected by conventional neurobehavioral evaluation. The decrease of connectivity tended to slow down in hypoxic conditions after training, which indicated that hypoxia tolerance strengthened because of the hypoxic training.