EEG activity of aviators during imagery flight training.
OBJECTIVE
Imagery flight training (IFT) is widely used in aviation without neurophysiological evaluation. Electroencephalogram (EEG) during IFT was compared between experienced fighter pilots (FP) and novice pilots (NP).


METHODS
Six FP and 9 NP performed imagery right bank, left bank, right roll, and left roll maneuvers. Each task was repeated 5 times in a random order. Instantaneous EEG power was calculated by the intertrial variance method.


RESULTS
In FP, 3 waves of event-related desynchronization (ERD) were observed. The third ERD (ERD3) was observed at all the electrode positions except Fp1 which began 0.25 s before the beginning of IFT and reached its peak 0.25 s after the beginning of IFT. In NP, ERD was not related to the start of IFT. The difference in event-related EEG at the peak of ERD3 was not significant between FP and NP. However, the negative change to the peak of ERD3 was significantly larger in FP than in NP.


CONCLUSIONS
It is speculated that ERD3 in FP may indicate the activation of cortical areas including visual- and motor-related areas involved in IFT.


CONCLUSIONS
It is speculated that the representation of IFT was programmed in visual- and motor-related cortical areas as an aviator's career advances.
D000328:Adult; D000337:Aerospace Medicine; D000513:Alpha Rhythm; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003344:Cortical Synchronization; D004538:Eidetic Imagery / Q000502:physiology*; D004566:Electrodes; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*; D008889:Military Personnel