Key result
Increasing cognitive fatigue linked to decreased frontal and increased posterior functional connectivity.
Why the study?
While functional neuroimaging has identified brain regions potentially comprising a fatigue network, whether functional connectivity between these regions changes as a function of cognitive fatigue has not been assessed.
Does cognitive fatigue alter functional connectivity between regions of the fatigue network in healthy individuals?
Observational (n=39)
No
Does cognitive fatigue alter functional connectivity between regions of the fatigue network in healthy individuals?
p-value: p=<0.05
Cognitive fatigue alters functional connectivity within a specific network, with the striatum, DLPFC, insula, and vmPFC acting as central hubs.
Should not yet inform clinical practice; leaves open mechanistic roles of these connectivity shifts in fatigue.
Cognitive fatigue, or fatigue related to mental work, is a common experience. A growing body of work using functional neuroimaging has identified several regions that appear to be related to cognitive fatigue and that potentially comprise a "fatigue network". These include the striatum of the basal ganglia, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the anterior insula. However, no work has been conducted to assess whether the connectivity between these regions changes as a function of cognitive fatigue. We used a task-based functional neuroimaging paradigm to induce fatigue in 39 healthy individuals, regressed the signal associated with the task out of the data, and investigated how the functional connectivity between these regions changed as cognitive fatigue increased. We observed functional connectivity between these regions and other frontal regions largely decreased as cognitive fatigue increased while connectivity between these seeds and more posterior regions increased. Furthermore the striatum, the DLPFC, the insula and the vmPFC appeared to be central 'nodes' or hubs of the fatigue network. These findings represent the first demonstration that the functional connectivity between these areas changes as a function of cognitive fatigue.
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Wylie et al. (2020) conducted an observational in Healthy volunteers (Cognitive fatigue) (n=39). N-back working memory task (0-back and 2-back) vs. 0-back condition (low cognitive load) was evaluated on Correlation between visual analogue scale of fatigue (VAS-F) scores and functional connectivity in predefined brain seeds (p=<0.05). Increasing cognitive fatigue was associated with decreased functional connectivity between frontal regions and increased connectivity with posterior regions.
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