Table tennis experts achieved significantly higher target accuracy and exhibited lower cortical activation in sensorimotor and multisensory brain areas compared to novices.
Cross-Sectional (n=35)
No
Does expertise level modulate cortical hemodynamics and behavioral performance during table tennis strokes in healthy volunteers?
Table tennis experts utilize fewer cortical resources to achieve superior behavioral performance compared to novices, supporting the neural efficiency hypothesis.
Absolute Event Rate: 99.48% vs 74.2%
p-value: p=<0.001
There is a growing interest to understand the neural underpinnings of high-level sports performance including expertise-related differences in sport-specific skills. Here, we aimed to investigate whether expertise level and task complexity modulate the cortical hemodynamics of table tennis players. 35 right-handed table tennis players (17 experts/18 novices) were recruited and performed two table tennis strokes (forehand and backhand) and a randomized combination of them. Cortical hemodynamics, as a proxy for cortical activity, were recorded using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, and the behavioral performance (i.e., target accuracy) was assessed via video recordings. Expertise- and task-related differences in cortical hemodynamics were analyzed using nonparametric threshold-free cluster enhancement. In all conditions, table tennis experts showed a higher target accuracy than novices. Furthermore, we observed expertise-related differences in widespread clusters compromising brain areas being associated with sensorimotor and multisensory integration. Novices exhibited, in general, higher activation in those areas as compared to experts. We also identified task-related differences in cortical activity including frontal, sensorimotor, and multisensory brain areas. The present findings provide empirical support for the neural efficiency hypothesis since table tennis experts as compared to novices utilized a lower amount of cortical resources to achieve superior behavioral performance. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the task complexity of different table tennis strokes is mirrored in distinct cortical activation patterns. Whether the latter findings can be useful to monitor or tailor sport-specific training interventions necessitates further investigations.
Carius et al. (Sat,) conducted a cross-sectional in Healthy volunteers (table tennis players) (n=35). Table tennis expertise vs. Novices was evaluated on Target accuracy (points) (p=<0.001). Table tennis experts achieved significantly higher target accuracy and exhibited lower cortical activation in sensorimotor and multisensory brain areas compared to novices.