Abstract

Sports training may lead to functional changes in the brain, and different types of sports, including table tennis, have different influences on these changes. However, the effects of long-term table tennis practice on brain function in expert athletes are largely undefined. Here, we investigated spontaneous regional brain activity characteristics of expert table tennis athletes by using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare differences between 25 athletes and 33 age- and sex-matched non-athletes. We analyzed four metrics—amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF), fractional ALFF, regional homogeneity, and degree centrality—because together they identify functional changes in the brain with greater sensitivity than a single indicator and may more comprehensively describe regional functional changes. Additional statistical analysis was conducted to assess whether any correlation existed between brain activity and years of table tennis training for athletes. Results show that compared with non-athletes, table tennis athletes showed altered spontaneous regional brain activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the calcarine sulcus, a visual area. Furthermore, the functional changes in the calcarine sulcus showed a significant correlation with the number of years of expert sports training. Despite the relatively small sample size, these results indicated that the regional brain function of table tennis athletes was associated with sports training–related changes, providing insights for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying the expert performance of athletes.

中文翻译：

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专业乒乓球运动员腹内侧前额叶皮层和视觉区域的自发区域大脑活动改变

摘要

运动训练可能会导致大脑功能发生变化，而包括乒乓球在内的不同类型的运动对这些变化有不同的影响。然而，长期乒乓球练习对专业运动员大脑功能的影响在很大程度上尚不清楚。在这里，我们通过使用静息态功能磁共振成像来研究专业乒乓球运动员的自发区域大脑活动特征，以比较 25 名运动员和 33 名年龄和性别匹配的非运动员之间的差异。我们分析了低频波动幅度 (ALFF)、分数 ALFF、区域均匀性和程度中心性这四个指标，因为它们一起识别大脑功能变化比单个指标具有更高的灵敏度，并且可以更全面地描述区域功能变化。还进行了额外的统计分析，以评估运动员的大脑活动与乒乓球训练年限之间是否存在相关性。结果表明，与非运动员相比，乒乓球运动员的腹内侧前额叶皮层和距距沟（视觉区域）的自发区域大脑活动发生了改变。此外，距状沟的功能变化与专家运动训练的年数显着相关。尽管样本量相对较小，但这些结果表明乒乓球运动员的区域大脑功能与运动训练相关的变化有关，为理解运动员专业表现背后的神经机制提供了见解。