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.