Fig. 1: Connectivity of the posterior cingulate cortex with the rest of the brain is reduced after spaceflight.
From: Prolonged microgravity induces reversible and persistent changes on human cerebral connectivity
At postflight, cosmonauts exhibited decreased participation of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) in whole-brain connectivity when compared to the preflight scan. Individual intrinsic connectivity contrast (ICC) values (gray) as extracted from the PCC cluster across the two scans in the cosmonaut group confirmed this decreasing effect for most cosmonauts (red: mean). For comparative purposes, in the control group (n = 14) ICC values did not show significant modifications across time (average change approximated zero). Subplots summarize the estimated differences between the two timepoints. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. Slice coordinates are in MNI space. Statistical significance is based on p < 0.005 uncorrected at the voxel level followed by p < 0.05 corrected for family-wise error at the cluster level (n = 15).
