Conclusion
In summary, using ERP, we demonstrated that the perceptual process
changed under both HA adaptation and HA deadaptation. The present study
suggests that HA adaptation
accompanies increased occipital lobe excitation and more neural
resources are recruited during the configural encoding stage. Moreover,
this change in perceptual organization is reversible after returning to
sea level, although low-level
feature processing for complete and incomplete faces is different after
deadaptation due to the compensation mechanism of incomplete faces,
which leads to quicker recovery.
Simultaneously,
the recovery of the configural
encoding stage requires more than one week but less than one month. The
present longitudinal study provides a persuading picture clarifying how
HA hypoxia/reoxygenation affect perceptual processes, and enables us to
shed light on how the human brain acclimates to hypoxia environments.