Sanchez-Lopez Javier, Silva-Pereyra Juan, Fernandez Thalia
Departamento de Neurobiologia Conductual y Cognitiva, Instituto de Neurobiologia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico , Juriquilla, Queretaro , Mexico.
Unidad de Investigacion Interdisciplinaria en Ciencias de la Salud y la Educacion, Facultad de Estudios Superiores Iztacala, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico , Tlalnepantla, Estado de Mexico , Mexico.
PeerJ. 2016 Jan 26;4:e1614. doi: 10.7717/peerj.1614. eCollection 2016.
Background. Research on sports has revealed that behavioral responses and event-related brain potentials (ERP) are better in expert than in novice athletes for sport-related tasks. Focused attention is essential for optimal athletic performance across different sports but mainly in combat disciplines. During combat, long periods of focused attention (i.e., sustained attention) are required for a good performance. Few investigations have reported effects of expertise on brain electrical activity and its neural generators during sport-unrelated attention tasks. The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of expertise (i.e., skilled and novice martial arts athletes) analyzing the ERP during a sustained attention task (Continuous Performance Task; CPT) and the cortical three-dimensional distribution of current density, using the sLORETA technique. Methods. CPT consisted in an oddball-type paradigm presentation of five stimuli (different pointing arrows) where only one of them (an arrow pointing up right) required a motor response (i.e., target). CPT was administered to skilled and novice martial arts athletes while EEG were recorded. Amplitude ERP data from target and non-target stimuli were compared between groups. Subsequently, current source analysis for each ERP component was performed on each subject. sLORETA images were compared by condition and group using Statistical Non-Parametric Mapping analysis. Results. Skilled athletes showed significant amplitude differences between target and non-target conditions in early ERP components (P100 and P200) as opposed to the novice group; however, skilled athletes showed no significant effect of condition in N200 but novices did show a significant effect. Current source analysis showed greater differences in activations in skilled compared with novice athletes between conditions in the frontal (mainly in the Superior Frontal Gyrus and Medial Frontal Gyrus) and limbic (mainly in the Anterior Cingulate Gyrus) lobes. Discussion. These results are supported by previous findings regarding activation of neural structures that underlie sustained attention. Our findings may indicate a better-controlled attention in skilled athletes, which suggests that expertise can improve effectiveness in allocation of attentional resources during the first stages of cognitive processing during combat.
背景。对体育项目的研究表明，在与运动相关的任务中，专家级运动员的行为反应和事件相关脑电位（ERP）比新手运动员更好。集中注意力对于不同体育项目的最佳运动表现至关重要，在格斗项目中尤为如此。在格斗过程中，良好的表现需要长时间的集中注意力（即持续注意力）。很少有研究报告专业技能对与运动无关的注意力任务期间脑电活动及其神经发生器的影响。本研究的目的是通过使用sLORETA技术，在持续注意力任务（连续性能任务；CPT）期间分析ERP以及电流密度的皮质三维分布，来评估专业技能（即熟练和新手武术运动员）的影响。方法。CPT包括以奇偶数类型范式呈现五种刺激（不同的指向箭头），其中只有一种（指向右上方的箭头）需要运动反应（即目标）。在记录脑电图的同时，对熟练和新手武术运动员进行CPT测试。比较两组之间目标和非目标刺激的ERP振幅数据。随后，对每个受试者的每个ERP成分进行电流源分析。使用统计非参数映射分析按条件和组比较sLORETA图像。结果。与新手组相比，熟练运动员在早期ERP成分（P100和P200）中目标和非目标条件之间表现出显著的振幅差异；然而，熟练运动员在N200中没有表现出条件的显著影响，但新手确实表现出显著影响。电流源分析表明，与新手运动员相比，熟练运动员在额叶（主要在额上回和额内侧回）和边缘叶（主要在前扣带回）的条件之间激活差异更大。讨论。这些结果得到了先前关于持续注意力基础神经结构激活的研究结果的支持。我们的研究结果可能表明熟练运动员的注意力控制更好，这表明专业技能可以提高格斗认知处理第一阶段注意力资源分配的有效性。
