Brain Network Reorganization during Visual Search Task Revealed by a Network Analysis of Fixation-Related Potential

Linze QIAN, Xianliang GE*, Zhao FENG, Sujie WANG, Jingjia YUAN, Yunxian PAN, Hongqi SHI, Jie XU, Yu SUN*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Visual search is ubiquitous in daily life and has attracted substantial research interest over the past decades. Although accumulating evidence has suggested complex neurocognitive processes underlying visual search, the neural communication across the brain regions remains poorly understood. The present work aimed to fill this gap by investigating functional networks of fixation-related potential (FRP) during the visual search task. Multi-frequency electroencephalogram (EEG) networks were constructed from 70 university students (male/female = 35/35) using FRPs time-locked to target and non-target fixation onsets, which were determined by concurrent eye-tracking data. Then graph theoretical analysis (GTA) and a data-driven classification framework were employed to quantitatively reveal the divergent reorganization between target and non-target FRPs. We found distinct network architectures between target and non-target mainly in the delta and theta bands. More importantly, we achieved a classification accuracy of 92.74% for target and non-target discrimination using both global and nodal network features. In line with the results of GTA, we found that the integration corresponding to target and non-target FRPs significantly differed, while the nodal features contributing most to classification performance primarily resided in the occipital and parietal-temporal areas. Interestingly, we revealed that females exhibited significantly higher local efficiency in delta band when focusing on the search task. In summary, these results provide some of the first quantitative insights into the underlying brain interaction patterns during the visual search process.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1219-1229
Number of pages11
JournalIEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering
Volume31
Early online date9 Feb 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2001-2011 IEEE.

Funding

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 82172056 and Grant 31800931, in part by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant LR23F010003, in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant 2021ZD0200408, in part by the Key Research and Development Program of Zhejiang Province under Grant 2022C03064, in part by the Zhejiang University Global Partnership Fund under Grant 100000-11320, in part by the Science and Technology Special Project of the Institute of Wenzhou, Zhejiang University under Grant XMGL-KJZX202203, and in part by the Hundred-Talent Program of Zhejiang University.

Keywords

  • EEG
  • eye-track
  • fixation-related potential (FRP)
  • functional connectivity
  • network analysis

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