What happens in the prefrontal cortex? Cognitive processing of novel and familiar stimuli in soccer: An explanatory fNIRS study

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation was to examine activity changes in the prefrontal cortex of experts under different cognitive demands, to help understand the underlying mechanisms of sport expertise. Previous studies have found that both general and sport-specific perceptual-cognitive skills contribute significantly to expertise in soccer. Therefore, this study investigated the prefrontal activity of 39 semi-professional soccer players, during general and sport-specific cognitive tasks. Since soccer is a movement-intensive sport, two out of four tests were performed in motion. While performing cognitive tests, prefrontal activity was recorded using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) (NIRSport, NIRx Medical Technologies, USA). Differences of prefrontal activity in general and sport-specific cognitive tasks were analyzed using paired t-tests.

The results showed significant increases in prefrontal activity during general cognitive tests (novel stimuli) compared to sport-specific tests (familiar stimuli). The results of activity changes during general cognition are consistent with previously reported findings on novel stimuli. The comparatively lower prefrontal activity changes during sport-specific cognition might be due to increased efficiency and learned automatisms of expert in this area. This seems to be in line with the “repetition suppression theory”, the “neural efficiency theory” and the “neural proficiency hypothesis”. The observed differences in cortical activity during general and sport-specific tasks could potentially be caused by altered prefrontal structures in experts. The prefrontal processing structure could be a decisive factor for expertise in team sports, but further research is needed to strengthen our finding.

In this purpose, intrapersonal studies on both experts’ and novices’ prefrontal activity during general and sport-specific cognition should be conducted to clarify, whether expertise is due to structurally different mechanisms in the cortex. Furthermore, age, position-specifics and gender differences must be taken into account. Information about the underlying mechanisms of athletic expertise could be used for optimizing future training methods, talent selection and could even have the potential to extend beyond the domain of sports and be applied in the healthcare sector.