Effects of chronic high-altitude exposure on memory function in indigenous highland junior high school students: behavioral and electroencephalographic evidence

TL;DR

This study explores how living at high altitudes affects memory and brain function in students, finding that higher altitudes are linked to worse memory performance and changes in brain activity.

Contribution

The study provides behavioral and EEG evidence of altitude-related memory impairments in adolescents, linking hypoxia to specific neural processing changes.

Findings

High-altitude students showed reduced memory discriminability and conservative decision-making.

EEG data revealed reduced attention during memory encoding and altered retrieval processes at high altitudes.

Blood oxygen saturation correlated with memory performance and brain activity across memory stages.

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of chronic high-altitude exposure on memory function and neural processing in indigenous highland junior high school students.

Three altitude groups were established–low (1,400 m), mid (2,800 m), and high (4,200 m). A delayed recognition task dissociated memory encoding, maintenance, and retrieval stages. Physiological (blood oxygen saturation, heart rate, vital capacity), behavioral, and electroencephalographic measures were employed.

Physiological: Blood oxygen saturation, heart rate, and maximal vital capacity decreased with increasing altitude. Behavioral: The high-altitude group showed lower recognition discriminability and more conservative decision-making vs. lower-altitude groups. Electrophysiological: High-altitude subjects exhibited reduced encoding-related attention, altered maintenance activity, and attenuated early retrieval attention. Correlation analyses linked blood oxygen saturation to behavioral discriminability and event-related potential components across memory stages.

Chronic hypoxic exposure associates with stage-specific alterations in memory-related neural and behavioral performance in adolescent highlanders. While more pronounced impairments occurred at 4,200 m, these findings are preliminary; finer-grained altitude sampling and larger samples are needed to identify critical altitude thresholds.

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