Brain Structural Plasticity in Visual and Sensorimotor Areas of Airline Pilots: A Voxel-based Morphometric Study

Background And Purpose: Airline pilot is a highly specialized profession that requires to response quickly and accurately in the presence of a wide variety of visual information. Although functional imaging studies have employed virtual simulation to identify brain areas that underlie various flying-related tasks, little is known about the specific patterns of structural plasticity in the airline pilot's brain.

Materials And Methods: In this study, we examined differences of gray matter and white matter volumes between 42 airline pilots and 39 non-pilots by using voxel-based morphometry, and further assessed the association between magnitude of structural alterations and flight time in the pilots.

Results: We found significantly increased white matter volume in the cuneus area in the pilot group compared to the non-pilot group (p <  0.05, FWE corrected). Using a relaxed threshold, it was also observed that the pilots had increased gray matter volume in the lingual gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, cuneus, and postcentral gyrus, and increased white matter volume in the postcentral area (p <  0.001, uncorrected). Moreover, the pilots' flight time was positively correlated with gray matter volume in the postcentral gyrus and white matter volume in the cuneus area (p <  0.001, uncorrected).

Conclusions: The morphological changes in specific visual and sensorimotor areas may provide airline pilots with neural efficiency in the visuo-motor processing related to flight.