The Neural Efficiency And Neural Mechanism During Table Tennis Player's Visual-Spatial Cognitive Processing

Neural efficiency means that individuals use fewer energy resources to cope with the task demands by focusing the energy on smaller brain areas.Neural efficiency is very critical in completing the tasks of which need quick and accurate reactions.Thus,the studies on neural efficiency become very important.The neural efficiency hypothesis describes the phenomenon that brighter individuals show lower brain activation than less bright ones when working on the same cognitive tasks.The hypothesis was further applied to the sensorimotor processes based on the evidence that cognition and purposeful actions share some neural substrates under the same computational principles.Present studies about the specific brain activation of expert athletes are somewhat inconsistent,and it has seldomly been clarified how the cortical functions in athletes differ from that in non-athletes and which neural mechanisms underlie athletes' superior performance.Table tennis is a kind of combat activity that is directly antagonistic,which requires fast response of athletes.It is very important for athletes to make use of the limited neural resources and to allocate the resources efficiently.Therefore,expert table tennis players offer us an appropriate model to explore the neural efficiency of athlete's brain and its neural mechanisms.In order to explore its neural mechanisms and the phenomena of neural efficiency in athletes,the present study was conducted from the perspective of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology.Based on neural efficiency hypothesis,we recruited table tennis players as subject and examined their behavior response as well as cortical activity while performing visual-spatial cognition tasks with the techniques of the electroencephalograph(EEG)and the functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI).Statistical results showed that(1)during the simple response time tasks,no behavior or cortical activation difference was found between the athletes and non-athletes.(2)During the discriminative response time tasks,no behavior difference was found between the athletes and non-athletes.The athletes' low-frequency(8 ~10Hz)and high-frequency(10 ~ 12 Hz)alpha ERD was lower than non-athletes' in parietal and occipital areas.Besides,under the notch circlecondition,the intra-hemispheric low-frequency alpha(P4-F4 and P4-C4 electrodes)of the athletes,the high-frequency alpha(P4-F4,P3-C3,P4-C4 electrodes)event related coherence of the athletes were higher than non-athletes'.The same applies to inter-hemispheric high-frequency alpha(C3-C4 and P3-P4 electrodes)event related coherence values.No brain activation difference was found under the notch cross-star condition.(3)Athletes reacted faster than non-athletes during both of the experiment conditions,and no accuracy difference was found between athletes and non-athletes.During the choice response time tasks,under the notch circle condition,athletes' low-frequency alpha ERD was lower in parietal and occipital areas than non-athletes',high-frequency alpha ERD was lower than non-athletes' in frontal,parietal and occipital areas.Besides,athletes' intra-hemispheric low-frequency alpha(P3-F3 and P4-C4 electrodes),high-frequency alpha(P3-C3,P4-C4 and P4-T8 electrodes)event related coherence values were higher than non-athletes',but athletes' high-frequency alpha(P3-O1 electrodes)event related coherence value was lower than non-athletes'.The same applies to inter-hemispheric low-and high-frequency alpha(C3-C4electrodes)event related coherence values,and to high-frequency alpha(P3-P4electrodes)event related coherence value.Under the notch cross-star condition,athletes' high-frequency alpha ERD was lower than non-athletes' in frontal,parietal and occipital areas.The athletes' intra-hemispheric low-frequency alpha(P3-C3 and P4-C4 electrodes),high-frequency alpha(P4-F4,P3-C3,P4-C4 and P4-T8 electrodes)event related coherence values were higher than non-athletes'.The athletes' inter-hemispheric low-and high-frequency alpha(C3-C4 electrodes)event related coherence values were higher than non-athletes'.(4)Athletes reacted faster than non-athletes during both of the experiment conditions,and no accuracy difference was found between athletes and non-athletes.Under the notch circle condition,athletes exhibited less brain activation than non-athletes in the brain areas including left middle frontal gyrus,right middle frontal gyrus(orbital part),right angular gyrus,lingual gyrus and left cerebellum crus.Under the notch cross-star condition,athletes exhibited less brain activation than non-athletes in the brain areas including bilateral middle frontal gyrus,right middle frontal gyrus(orbital part),left supplementary motor area,paracentral lobule,precuneus,left supramarginal gyrus,right angular gyrus,left inferior temporal gyrus,middle temporal gyrus,lingual gyrus and left cerebellum crus.From the results mentioned above,we could draw the following conclusions(1)the neural efficiency of athletes was universality,and it could be expanded to general visual-spatial cognitive task.(2)During the visual-spatial cognitive processing,the neural efficiency of table tennis athletes was modulated by the required central resource of the task.There was no significant difference in neural efficiency between athletes and non-athletes when the task only needed low-level central resource.While,when the task needed mid-level central resource,the athletes' neural efficiency was differ from non-athletes'.When the task needed high-level central resource,the athletes' neural efficiency also was differ from non-athletes',and the behavioral indexes were also different between athletes and non-athletes.(3)The underlying neural mechanisms of neural efficiency in athletes' brain were training-induced spatially selective cortical activation and excellent functional co-ordination between brain areas,and use less energy to cope with the task demands.(4)The inconformity of the existing study probably caused by the difference in the required central resource of the task?Firstly,this study enriches the confirming evidence of neural efficiency in athletes,and offers some theoretical reasons for improving neural efficiency by sports training.On combination of EEG and fMRI techniques and from the point of the required quantity of central energy,this study conducted a systematic explore of the neural efficiency in athletes,and offered a new perspective in interpreting the inconformity of the existing study.Secondly,the present study explored the behavioral and cortical activity characteristics of athletes during the visual-spacial cognitive tasks,and confirmed the universalism of the athletes' neural efficiency.These results will contribute to further understanding the influence of sports training on neural efficiency.