The Effect Of Different Types Of Sport Proficiency On Cognitive Control And The Functional Connectivity Between Dorsal Lateral Prefrontal Cortex And Primary Motor Cortex

Cognitive control refers to the mental process of flexibly allowing attention resources in a self-adaptive manner to dynamically adjust thoughts and actions in a specific situation in order to achieve specific goals and intentions.Behavioral and neuroimaging research showed that motor skills training can effectively promote cognitive control.As a model of receiving long-term training of one specific sport skill,the proactive and reactive control of response inhibition of athletes with different proficient motor skills have not been studied.At psychophysiological level,the impact of different skills on cognitive control may be related to the specific activation of the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC).DLPFC and other cortical and subcortical tissues together tune primary motor cortex(M1)to modulate the final output of behavioral response.The connectivity between DLPFC and M1 may provide explanation for the mechanism underlying the influence of different motor skills on cognitive control.Therefore,this project aims to study the dual cognitive control of table tennis players and swimmers with long-term training experience as representatives of proficient open and closed skill practitioners and trying to investigate how long-term single-type training affects the cognitive control of response inhibition.In addition,this study will use dual-transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol to further explore the connectivity between DLPFC and M1 after specific long-term sport skill training.To examine the above questions,we adopted an adapted version of stop signal paradigm to induce proactive and reactive control.Study 1 examines the effects of open and closed motor skills on proactive and reactive inhibitory control.The four experiments of Study 2 focused on exploring the effects of open and closed motor skills on resting functional connectivity between DLPFC and M1.Study 3 explored the effects of open and closed motor skills on the temporal dynamics of DLPFC-M1 connectivity in cognitive control tasks.Study one recruited 21 table tennis(open skill)athletes,24 swimmers(closed skill)and 22non-athletes without training experience as control group.The modified selective response time task and stop signal task were used to investigate the subjects’ proactive and reactive control of response inhibition.The results showed that open sport skill enhanced proactive control than closed sport skill and non-skill group.Open and closed motor skill had no impact on reactive control.Study two recruited 15 table tennis athletes,15 swimmer and 14non-athletes without training experience as control group The resting DLPFC-M1 connectivity was investigated by dual-site paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation.Results showed that when receiving 90%RMT conditioning stimulation at DLPFC,the inhibitory influence on M1 of athletes with open motor skill was higher than those with closed motor skill.However,no difference was found between open skill group and control group.The functional connectivity of closed skill group was comparable to control group.In all groups,peak inhibitory effect of DLPFC to M1 was found when the conditioning stimulus was 110% RMT,and the stimulus interval was 10 ms.In addition,study two did not found effective functional connectivity between right DLPFC and ipsilateral M1;after activating by TMS,left DLPFC had transient influence on ipsilateral M1;five centimeter before the hotspot of first interosseous dorsal muscle on M1 could be an effective spot to activate the connectivity between DLPFC and M1.These findings provide significant evidence for the validity of using such protocol in study three.Study three recruited 15 table tennis athletes,15 swimmers and 14 non-athletes with no training experience as control.The DLPFC-M1 connectivity was observed in the early and late stages of proactive cognitive control and the early stage of reactive cognitive control.The results showed that athletes with open motor skill had stronger DLPFC-M1 connectivity at late stage of proactive control than baseline,and the facilitation of open skill group is greater than that of closed skill group and control group.There is no difference between closed skill group and control group.The DLPFC-M1 facilitation in the late stage of proactive cognitive control potentially brought by open skill training may support the successful inhibitory performance of athletes.To our best knowledge,this is the first study to investigate the effects of open and closed motor skill on response inhibition within the framework of dual cognitive control theory.The study mainly found that open skill training may improve the fine tuning of DLPFC to maintain the balance of resting M1,making it easier for open skill athletes to switch from resting state to cognitive control.DLPFC excites M1 in the late stage of proactive control.The facilitatory effect of DLPFC may enable athletes with open motor skill to improve inhibition and maintain fast and accurate action execution.The influence of closed motor skill of DLPFC-M1 connectivity was not observed in the current study.Theoretically,this study supported a more nuanced and fine-grained analysis of cognitive control function in individuals with different types of motor skills.Secondly,the study clarified the function role of DLPFC in the dual cognitive control.Clinically,the results provided potential intervention methods to individuals with cognitive deficits(e.g.,the elderly,schizophrenia,children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).