Central autonomic network alterations in male endurance athletes

Figure 1. Group differences between athletes and non-athletes in functional connectivity for aINS_L, aINS_R, and dACC seeds. All identified brain regions indicate significantly increased rsFC in athletes compared to non-athletes. The cool, warm and red colormaps illustrate the magnitude of the statistical significance (Z-score) in each voxel, where brighter color means higher Z-score. The light green color found in pINS and vACC regions occurs due to the overlapping in these areas of the cool and warm colormaps from aINS_L and aINS_R, respectively. aINS_L—left anterior insula, aINS_R—right anterior insula, dACC—dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, pINS—posterior insula, AG—angular gyrus, dlPFC—dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, vACC—ventral anterior cingulate cortex, M1/S1—primary sensorimotor cortex.

Figure 2. Athletes showed higher rsFC than non-athletes in two distinct network components. Network component #1 consisted of 13 nodes and 13 edges, and network component #2 consisted of 11 nodes and 13 edges, and were distributed across the somatomotor, dorsal/ventral attention and frontoparietal networks. Nodes are color-coded according to the 7 Yeo network parcellation 54. Somatomotor (blue), ventral attention (magenta), dorsal attention (orange) and frontoparietal (pink) networks. pINS—posterior insula, dlPFC—dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, vACC—ventral anterior cingulate cortex, M1—primary motor cortex, PreM—premotor cortex, VisM—visuomotor cortex, S1—primary sensory cortex, A1—primary auditory cortex, SMG—supramarginal gyrus, STG—superior temporal gyrus, AG—angular gyrus, Fus—fusiform gyrus.

Figure 3. Representative mediation analysis for a given cluster of seed-based rsFC differences (aINS_R-vACC) between athletes and non-athletes adjusted by age and BMI. Alterations in rsFC are due to regular physical exercises and are not mediated by heart rate. Path “a” is the effect of PWC\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$_{150}$$\end{document}150 (causal variable) on heart rate (mediator). Path “b” is the effect of heart rate (mediator) on aINS_R-vACC connectivity (outcome variable), partialling out the effect of PWC\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$_{150}$$\end{document}150. The indirect effect a*b measures the amount of mediation, and the direct effect c’ is the effect of PWC\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb}…

Figure 4. Locations of ROIs used for seed-based rsFC analysis. dACC—dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, vmPFC—ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, aINS—anterior insula, AMYG—amygdala.