Ren Shuangquan, Shi Peng, Feng Xioasu, Zhang Kai, Wang Wenchao
Department of Physical Education, Northeast Petroleum University, Daqing, China.
School of Physical Education, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
Brain Behav. 2025 Jan;15(1):e70212. doi: 10.1002/brb3.70212.
Whether athletes possess superior executive functions still needs further examination. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the executive function advantages of athletes and the differences in these advantages between open- and closed-skill sports through systematic review and meta-analysis.
Computer searches of CNKI, Web of Science, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and SPORTDiscus databases were conducted. After document selection, data extraction, and quality assessment by two researchers, data processing, statistical analysis, and visual presentation were performed using SPSS 25.0, Stata 16.0, and GraphPad Prism 8 software.
A total of 41 articles were included, including 3845 athletes with a mean age of 9.6-42.8 years. Athletes showed more positive inhibitory control (Z = 5.18, standardized mean difference (SMD) = -0.631, 95% confidence intervals (CI) = -0.869 to -0.392, p = 0.000) and working memory (Z = 3.42, SMD = -0.382, 95%CI = -0.601 to -0.163, p = 0.001) compared to the general group with no sports experience. Elite and sub-elite, and sub-elite and amateur athletes all showed more positive performance on the cognitive flexibility task compared to the latter. In addition, open-skilled athletes performed more positively on working memory and cognitive flexibility tasks compared to closed-skilled athletes. Egger linear regression analysis revealed a possible publication bias for inhibitory control, whereas there was no publication bias for working memory and cognitive flexibility. Univariate meta-regression analysis revealed that date of publication (β = 0.145) and sample size (β = -0.002) were sources of heterogeneity between studies for the inclusion of cognitive flexibility (p < 0.05). The sensitivity analysis of the one-by-one elimination method and the cut-and-patch method found the results to be relatively robust and reliable.
Athletes have superior executive function performance that increases with sports experience. In addition, open-skilled athletes showed more positive executive function. The result has guiding significance for the selection and training of athletes in the future.
运动员是否具备卓越的执行功能仍需进一步研究。因此，本研究旨在通过系统评价和荟萃分析，探讨运动员的执行功能优势以及开放技能运动和封闭技能运动在这些优势方面的差异。
对中国知网、科学网、PubMed、ScienceDirect和SPORTDiscus数据库进行计算机检索。由两名研究人员进行文献筛选、数据提取和质量评估后，使用SPSS 25.0、Stata 16.0和GraphPad Prism 8软件进行数据处理、统计分析和可视化呈现。
共纳入41篇文章，包括3845名运动员，平均年龄为9.6至42.8岁。与无运动经验的普通组相比，运动员在抑制控制方面表现出更积极的效果（Z = 5.18，标准化均差（SMD）= -0.631，95%置信区间（CI）= -0.869至-0.392，p = 0.000）和工作记忆方面（Z = 3.42，SMD = -0.382，95%CI = -0.601至-0.163，p = 0.001）。精英与次精英、次精英与业余运动员相比，在认知灵活性任务上均表现出更积极的表现。此外，与封闭技能运动员相比，开放技能运动员在工作记忆和认知灵活性任务上表现更积极。Egger线性回归分析显示抑制控制可能存在发表偏倚，而工作记忆和认知灵活性不存在发表偏倚。单变量元回归分析显示，发表年份（β = 0.145）和样本量（β = -0.002）是纳入认知灵活性研究间异质性的来源（p < 0.05）。逐一剔除法和剪补法的敏感性分析发现结果相对稳健可靠。
运动员具有卓越的执行功能表现，且随着运动经验的增加而提高。此外，开放技能运动员表现出更积极的执行功能。该结果对未来运动员的选拔和训练具有指导意义。
