Poster No:
839
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Magdalena Pfaff1, Joanna McLaren21, Sinéad Moore1, Chris Racey1, Samira Bouyagoub2, Daniel Campbell-Meiklejohn1, Sarah Garfinkel3, Charlotte Rae1
Institutions:
1University of Sussex, Brighton, Sussex, 2Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton, Sussex, 3University College London, London, Greater London
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
The Default Mode Network (DMN) is associated with daydreaming, meditation, thoughts related to the self, or episodic memories related to the self (Vessel, et al., 2013) and is comprised of dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, the medial and lateral parietal, and the lateral temporal cortices (Raichle, et al., 2015). Connectivity within the DMN is influenced by many factors, such as sleep, exercise, mental health, stress, or lifestyle (Krause, et al., 2017, Schiller, et al., 2018) which are often affected by occupational demands such as working hours and the maintenance of a work/life balance (Holt-Gosselin et al., 2021). This research investigated how working patterns influence the connectivity of the DMN during resting state, by studying full-time employees switching from a 5-day working week to a 4-day working week, with no loss of salary. We hypothesised that reducing time at work would increase connectivity within the DMN, given previous research finding that lifestyle can change resting-state networks.
Methods:
In this study, 35 participants shifted from a 5-day to a 4-day work week whilst retaining their salary. The participants were scanned with a 3T Siemens Prisma, using Human Connectome Project (HCP) resting-state fMRI acquisition protocols (15 minutes total fMRI duration) at baseline (while still working 5 days), and then again after a 12-week trial of working 4 days a week. Additional scans were collected using HCP protocols (T1, T2, task fMRI), which were used for HCP multi-modal preprocessing.
Data were preprocessed using HCP multi-modal pipelines, with further normalization of the fMRI timeseries to MNI space, for further statistical analysis in the CONN toolbox. Using region of interest (ROI) to ROI analysis, we investigated the changes in DMN connectivity pre- compared to post-4-day work week trial, using the dorsal Default Mode Network template provided by Shirer et al (2012).
Results:
DMN connectivity showed no significant difference between pre- and post-4-day work week trial, T(34)= -1.87, p = 0.070 for global efficiency and 0.051 for local efficiency. However, a trend towards stronger DMN connectivity was observed post 4-day week, compared to the 5-day week.
Conclusions:
Time spent at work may influence brain connectivity, potentially underpinning changes to wellbeing and performance at work (Collewet, & Sauermann, 2017), but we did not observe significant effects of a 4-day week on the DMN, in our present sample. Research shows that stress levels significantly reduce in a 4-day week (Schiller, et al., 2018). Experiencing more stress is associated with higher cortisol levels, which substantially lowers DMN connectivity (Zeev-Wolf, et al., 2019). Sleep has also been found to improve in a 4-day work week (Schiller, et al., 2018) and to alter DMN connectivity, where sleep deprivation leads to reduced DMN connectivity (Krause, et al., 2017). Thus, via different mechanisms, DMN connectivity could increase in a 4-day week. While not significant here, we can see a clear trend. Recruitment is continuing to investigate how sub-groups may respond differently to the work time reduction.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Social Neuroscience Other 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
fMRI Connectivity and Network Modeling
Task-Independent and Resting-State Analysis 2
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Sleep and Wakefulness
Keywords:
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Sleep
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Collewet, M., & Sauermann, J. (2017). Working hours and productivity. Labour economics, 47, 96-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2017.03.006
Holt-Gosselin, B., Keller, A., Chesnut, M., & Williams, L. (2021). Default Mode Network Moderates the Relationship Between Lifestyle Changes and Natural Improvements in Clinical Symptoms Over Time in Untreated Participants. Biological Psychiatry, 89(9), S111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.02.287
Krause, A. J., Simon, E. B., Mander, B. A., Greer, S. M., Saletin, J. M., Goldstein-Piekarski, A. N., & Walker, M. P. (2017). The sleep-deprived human brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 18(7), 404-418. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.55
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Zeev-Wolf, M., Levy, J., Goldstein, A., Zagoory-Sharon, O., & Feldman, R. (2019). Chronic early stress impairs default mode network connectivity in preadolescents and their mothers. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 4(1), 72-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2018.09.009