Attention Flexibility Advantage In Table Tennis Players:a Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Attentional flexibility refers to the ability to shift the focus of attention from one location to another,which affects the perceptual processing efficiency of individuals to complex motion scenes.Sports training can not only improve the performance of athletes in sport-related tasks,but also improve the cognitive ability of athletes.Table tennis is chartered by fast and varied changes,the ability to shift the focus of attention directly affects athletes’ performance.Present studies have pointed out that table tennis athletes have better attention ability than non-athletes.However,the change of attentional flexibility of table tennis athletes after long-term sport training remain unclear,and the causal relationship between them is still unknown.Through horizontal comparison and longitudinal follow-up,this study discussed the advantages of attentional flexibility of table tennis athletes and its causal relationship with sport training.Furthermore,resting state functional magnetic resonance(rs-f MRI)was used to study the characteristics of brain functional activity in table tennis athletes.Experiment 1 explored the correlativity between table tennis training and attentional flexibility.The results showed that table tennis athletes had faster response speed in table tennis related task and cue-target task,and there was a significant correlation between table tennis related task response time and attentional cost,indicating that table tennis athletes’ attentional flexibility performance was related to sport performance.Experiment 2 explored the causal relationship between table tennis related training and attentional flexibility.A long-term follow-up survey was conducted on athletes who had sustained table tennis related training.The results showed that after continuous sport training,the athletes’ correct rate of cue-target task improved significantly compared with the pre-test,but there was no such difference in the control group.It shows that table tennis training can improve the attentional flexibility of athletes.In experiment 3,rs-f MRI was used to study the brain functional characteristics of table tennis athletes in order to explore the brain mechanism under thier attentional flexibility advantage.Firstly,four indicators,including ALFF/f ALFF,Re Ho and DC,were used to compare the differences of resting brain functional activities between athletes and non-athletes at the whole brain level.The results showed that the functional activities of athletes in the primary visual cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex(vm PFC)changed,and this change was significantly correlated with the training years.Subsequently,ROI-based functional connectivity analysis was conducted for the nodes of the attention network.The results showed that the overall connectivity strength of the attention network was increased in athlete,and the functional connectivity between the vm PFC and the inferior parietal lobe(IPL)as well as temporoparietal junction(TPJ)was increased.The results showed that the functional activity of the attention network was enhanced in table tennis athletes,and the attention network activity might be modulated by vm PFC.Based on the findings of this study,we believe that table tennis athletes have an advantage in attentional flexibility compared with non-athletes,which is caused by sport training.At the level of brain function,the athletes’ functional activities in visual cortex and vm PFC has changed.The overall connection strength of attention network was increased in athlete too.These changes are related to table tennis training,and may be the neural basis for the advantage of attentional flexibility of table tennis athletes.