Fig. 2: Pathway enrichment analysis and Protein-protein interactions.

a Annotation of pathways associated with deregulated plasma miRNAs after heading (purple) and exercise (orange) revealed that heading training is specifically associated with an increased number of disease-related and genetic/environmental information processing pathways when compared to exercise. Node size corresponds to the gene ratio and x-axis denotes the statistical significance using the false discovery rate (Benjamini-Hochberg method), as per legend. b Stratification of identified significantly enriched pathways after heading and exercise into pathway categories. c Subnetwork analysis of shared categories revealed that heading training is specifically associated with immunostimulatory, neuronal development and cell survival pathways. Edge color denotes the type of training, edge thickness corresponds to the number of pathways per category, and edge transparency signifies statistical significance using the false discovery rate (Benjamini-Hochberg method), as per legend. d Analysis of gene-disease associations revealed a higher number of proteins associated with neurodegeneration and increased number of interactions linked to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) after heading compared to exercise. Node color corresponds to gene ontology-biological process, node size and transparency represents the number of interacting partners, as per legend. Edge color only highlights intra- and inter-group interactions.