CORRELATION BETWEEN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY OF THE BRAIN

Abstract

Aim. The purpose of the article is to study the correlation between physical activity and functional connectivity (FC) of the brain based on EEG data. Materials and methods. The study sample included 43 healthy persons aged from 17 to 35 years (26 women). The participants were divided into two groups. The first group (21 persons) was engaged in physical activity for more than 3 hours a week, the second (22 persons) group was not engaged in physical activity. In all participants, 10-minute EEG recording at rest was performed. To assess the differences in the global characteristics of functional connectivity, such graph metrics as the characteristic path length, clustering coefficient, small world index, and modularity were chosen. Results. Significant differences between the two groups in terms of the cluster coefficient were obtained using the Wilcoxon test (W = 201, p < 0.001). To compare the intergroup differences, the DOT (double one-sided test) procedure was used, which allowed assessing the equivalence of groups based on a pre-selected effect size. When comparing the two groups, statistically significant differences are observed for two one-sided Student’s tests, while the effect size exceeds the pre-selected effect size (d = 0.05), both for the upper and lower reference values, which indicates not only statistical significance, but also the inequality of the samples. Conclusion. Young people who regularly engage in physical activity for more than 3 hours per week have higher functional connectivity of the brain than those of the same age who do not engage in physical activity, which is expressed in the clustering coefficient. In general, the results of this study show that physical activity increases functional connectivity of the brain in the alpha range. The connectivity increases due to the emergence of new functional clusters within existing associations of brain regions.