Extraction of Seafarers’ Occupational Plasticity Brain Network Based on Effective Connectivity Lateralization

Lateralization is an effective model for exploring changes in brain activity and is widely used to assess brain function. Seafarers, as an occupation working in marine environments, are subjected to long-term specialized occupational demands and experiences, which inevitably impact brain function. By utilizing lateralization, the influence of occupational experience on brain activity can be further explored. A novel Effective Connectivity Lateralization Analysis (ECLA) framework is proposed, which incorporates a Transformer-based Granger causality model (Transformer-GC) to analyze the effects of seafaring on brain plasticity. The Transformer-GC model constructs effective connectivity (EC) matrices, and lateralization indices are derived to investigate occupational influences on brain activity. Two control groups of non-seafarers are included to identify seafarers' unique occupational plasticity brain networks. Results show that Transformer-GC achieves an accuracy improvement of nearly 16% and 19.4% over the GRU-based and MVGC model, respectively, and a 5% gain over Pearson-based functional connectivity, confirming its superior performance. Moreover, the results of the ECLA showed significant differences in VentralAttention, Somatomotor, DorsalAttention in the seafarer, demonstrating that these brain networks are affected by the long-term work of seafarers. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of ECLA in revealing the impact of long-term maritime work on brain plasticity, particularly in identifying the brain network of seafarers' occupational plasticity. It is shown that occupational experience can reshape the lateralization of brain functional activity, offering new insights into neural plasticity across different professions.