Table 1.
Comparison of demographic data between the two groups.
Fig 1.
Flow chart of the study. Initially, sMRI imaging was performed with a scanner in the two groups.
Subsequently, FreeSurfer software and CTA12 toolkits were used for preprocessing, and the GM images were smoothed using SPM12. Morphological indicators of participants were then obtained. Structural differences between the two groups at the voxel level and at the surface level were compared by two-sample t-test, and the results of the differences were superimposed on a template for presentation. Finally, the relationship between morphological indicators and behavioral tests was assessed.
Table 2.
Differences in behavioral tests between the two groups.
Fig 2.
Plot of differences in brain GMV between flying cadets and general college students (GRF corrected, p<0.05, initial threshold p<0.001).
Table 3.
Differences in regional GMV between the two groups.
Fig 3.
The comparison of differences in cerebral cortex structure between flying cadets and general college students.
L stands for the left hemisphere, and R stands for the right hemisphere. The curvature, MC-WMS, and S-Jacobi in the lateral occipital region were significantly higher compared to the control group (MCBLC, P < 0.05). Furthermore, the WM-GM percentage in the cuneus region and the GC-WMS in the middle temporal region were also significantly higher than in the control group (MCBLC, P < 0.05). MC-WMS stood for mean curvature of the white matter surface, S-Jacobi stood for surface Jacobi, WM-GM percentage represented the proportion of white matter to gray matter on the surface, and GC-WMS denoted the Gaussian curvature of the white matter surface.
Fig 4.
Comparison of cerebral cortical indicators between flying cadets and general college students.
(a) curvature information for the lateral occipital region; (b) MC-WMS information for the lateral occipital region; (c) WM-GM percentage information for the cuneus region; (d) S-Jacobi information for the lateral occipital region; (e) GC-WMS information for the middle temporal region. Three stars represented P<0.001, red dotted lines and values represented the mean values, and black lines indicated the median values.
Table 4.
Cortical regions with significant component differences in cortical morphological features.
Fig 5.
Correlation of extracted indicators with behavioral tests in differentiated cortical regions (p < 0.05).
(a) Detailed information for the cuneus region; (b) Detailed information for the lateral occipital region; (a) Detailed information for the middle temporal region.