Search Results (17)

The study of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is crucial for understanding brain function and has extensive applications in clinical diagnosis, neuroscience, and brain–computer interface technology. This paper addresses the challenge of recognizing motor imagery EEG signals with few channels, which is essential for portable and real-time applications. A novel framework is proposed that applies a continuous wavelet transform to convert time-domain EEG signals into two-dimensional time-frequency representations. These images are then concatenated into channel-dependent multilayer EEG time-frequency representations (CDML-EEG-TFR), incorporating multidimensional information of time, frequency, and channels, allowing for a more comprehensive and enriched brain representation under the constraint of few channels. By adopting a deep convolutional neural network with EfficientNet as the backbone and utilizing pre-trained weights from natural image datasets for transfer learning, the framework can simultaneously learn temporal, spatial, and channel features embedded in the CDML-EEG-TFR. Moreover, the transfer learning strategy effectively addresses the issue of data sparsity in the context of a few channels. Our approach enhances the classification accuracy of motor imagery EEG signals in few-channel scenarios. Experimental results on the BCI Competition IV 2b dataset show a significant improvement in classification accuracy, reaching 80.21%. This study highlights the potential of CDML-EEG-TFR and the EfficientNet-based transfer learning strategy in few-channel EEG signal classification, laying a foundation for practical applications and further research in medical and sports fields. Full article

This narrative review explores the significant evolution of sports rehabilitation, tracing its trajectory from basic exercise therapies of the early 20th century to the advanced, neuroplasticity-driven approaches of the 21st century, with a specific focus on anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). The primary aim is to understand how neuroplasticity, motor control, and sensorimotor retraining can optimize recovery, reduce reinjury risk, and enhance long-term athletic performance, and to synthesize current rehabilitation strategies that integrate innovative technologies, such as robotics, virtual reality (VR), and biofeedback systems, to address the neurocognitive deficits that contribute to the alarmingly high reinjury rates (9–29%) observed in young athletes post-ACLR. These deficits include impaired proprioception, motor control, and psychological factors like fear of reinjury. The methodology employed involves a narrative review of peer-reviewed literature from databases including PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The synthesis of findings underscores the importance of holistic rehabilitation approaches, including targeted proprioceptive exercises, dual-task drills, and immersive VR training, in enhancing sensorimotor integration, decision-making, and athlete confidence. Furthermore, this review highlights the critical need for long-term monitoring and interdisciplinary collaboration between neuroscientists, physiotherapists, and engineers to refine rehabilitation protocols and ensure sustained recovery. By leveraging neuroplasticity and advanced technologies, the field can shift from a focus on purely physical restoration to comprehensive recovery models that significantly reduce reinjury risks and optimize athletic performance. Full article

Background: Sexual characteristics in brain neurophysiological activity are a significant area of research in cognitive neuroscience. As a sport that involves minimal physical movement, shooters remain largely stationary during aiming, facilitating the collection of their neural activity compared to athletes in other sports. Objectives: To investigate the neural characteristics of novice shooters of different genders under competitive conditions. Methods: Sixteen subjects participated in a shooting competition following four weeks of training. Electroencephalogram (EEG) data and behavioral data (shooting scores, aiming curves, and pressure curves) were recorded during the competition, and the power spectral density (PSD) and phase-locking value (PLV) network features were extracted to explore further the correlation between the shooting scores and neural activity. Results: In our sample, (1) there were no significant differences in shooting scores between males and females; (2) there were differences in PSD values across the theta, alpha, alpha-2, beta, and gamma frequency bands between males and females; and (3) there were differences in PLV network properties in the theta, alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands between males and females. Correlation analysis revealed associations between shooting scores and neural activity in male and female novices. Conclusions: The case study demonstrated that males and females exhibited different neural activity characteristics in the shooting competition, providing a foundation for further investigation into the sex differences in neural activity in shooting competition. Full article

This paper presents a novel approach to predicting shot accuracy in badminton by analyzing Quiet Eye (QE) metrics such as QE duration, fixation points, and gaze dynamics. We develop a neural network model that combines visual data from eye-tracking devices with biomechanical data such as body posture and shuttlecock trajectory. Our model is designed to predict shot accuracy, providing insights into the role of QE in performance. The study involved 30 badminton players of varying skill levels from the Chinese Swimming Club in Singapore. Using a combination of eye-tracking technology and motion capture systems, we collected data on QE metrics and biomechanical factors during a series of badminton shots for a total of 750. Key results include: (1) The neural network model achieved 85% accuracy in predicting shot outcomes, demonstrating the potential of integrating QE metrics with biomechanical data. (2) QE duration and onset were identified as the most significant predictors of shot accuracy, followed by racket speed and wrist angle at impact. (3) Elite players exhibited significantly longer QE durations (M = 289.5 ms) compared to intermediate (M = 213.7 ms) and novice players (M = 168.3 ms). (4) A strong positive correlation (r = 0.72) was found between QE duration and shot accuracy across all skill levels. These findings have important implications for badminton training and performance evaluation. The study suggests that QE-based training programs could significantly enhance players’ shot accuracy. Furthermore, the predictive model developed in this study offers a framework for real-time performance analysis and personalized training regimens in badminton. By bridging cognitive neuroscience and sports performance through advanced data analytics, this research paves the way for more sophisticated, individualized training approaches in badminton and potentially other fast-paced sports. Future research directions include exploring the temporal dynamics of QE during matches and developing real-time feedback systems based on QE metrics. Full article

Neuroscience applied to motor activity is a growing area that aims to understand the effects of motor activity on the structures and functions of the Central Nervous System. Attention has been paid to this multidisciplinary field of investigation by the scientific community both because it is of great importance in the treatment of many chronic diseases and because of its potential applications in the Movement Sciences. Motor activity during a developmental age is, in fact, an indispensable tool for the physical and mental growth of children, both able-bodied and disabled. Through movement, individuals can improve their physical efficiency and promote their own better health, establish relationships with the environment and others, express themselves and their emotions, form their identity and develop cognitive processes. This literature review aims, therefore, to highlight how an adequate practice of motor activity offers extraordinary possibilities for everyone in relation to learning, from the perspective of an integral development of the person, and, consequently, can raise the awareness of those involved in the training and growth, especially the youngest, towards the educational value of motor and sports activities. According to this review, and in line with the modern neuroscientific approach toward the relationships between motor activities and cognitive functions, it is possible to claim that hypokinesia tends to inhibit learning. Therefore, it now seems more topical than ever to draw attention to the need to introduce working proposals that integrate brain-based motor activity programs into the school curriculum. Full article

Background: Although pain management programs reduce pain and improve wellness perception in the general population, few studies have explored these effects in athletes. This study evaluated the effects of an educational program about pain neuroscience on wellness, training performance, and pain in youth athletes. Differences according to sex were also explored. Methods: For 12 weeks, 52 athletes were randomly assigned to an intervention group (IG: educational program about healthy sports habits and pain neuroscience) or a control group (CG: education on healthy sports habits only). Before the start of the study and weekly until its end, wellness, training performance, and pain intensity were monitored via a questionnaire. Results: After the intervention, IG decreased stress (p = 0.028) compared to the baseline, and a higher number of training sessions were performed without health problems (76.6%) compared to the number in the CG (63.0%) (χ² = 8.31, p = 0.004). Regarding pain, the IG perceived lower pain than the CG did (p = 0.028). Females in the IG had lower pain than those in the CG did (p < 0.05), without differences in other variables or in males (p > 0.05). Conclusions: An educational program that includes pain neuroscience may help youth athletes improve their wellness status, pain intensity perception, and training session performance. Full article

In the current study, we aimed at evaluating the possible sex differences in cognitive-motor dual-task training (CMDT) effects on the sport and cognitive performance of semi-elite basketball athletes. Moreover, we investigated the CMDT effects on proactive brain processing using event-related potential (ERP) analysis. Fifty-two young basketball athletes (age 16.3 years) were randomly assigned into an experimental (Exp) group performing the CMDT, and a control (Con) group executing standard motor training. Before and after a 5-week training intervention, participants’ motor performance was evaluated using dribbling tests. Cognitive performance was assessed by measuring response time and accuracy in a discrimination response task (DRT). Brain activity related to motor and cognitive preparation was measured through the Bereitschaftspotential (BP) and the prefrontal negativity (pN) ERP components. The CMDT involved the simultaneous execution of dribbling exercises and cognitive tasks which were realized using interactive technologies on the court. Results showed that both groups had some enhancements from pre- to post-tests, but only the Exp group enhanced in the dribbling exercise. In the DRT after the CMDT, females performed faster than males in the Exp group. All groups, except for the Con group of males, performed the DRT more accurately after the training. According to the ERP results, in the Exp group of males and in Exp and Con group of females, we found an increase in pN amplitude (associated with better accuracy); in the Exp group of females and in Exp and Con group of males, we found an increase in BP (associated with better response time). In conclusion, the present study endorsed the efficacy of the proposed CMDT protocol on both the sport and cognitive performance of semi-elite basketball players and showed that the neural basis of these benefits may be interpreted as sex-related compensatory effects. Full article

Improving the onco-functional balance has always been a challenge in glioma surgery, especially regarding motor function. Given the importance of conation (i.e., the willingness which leads to action) in patient’s quality of life, we propose here to review the evolution of its intraoperative assessment through a reminder of the increasing knowledge of its neural foundations—based upon a meta-networking organization at three levels. Historical preservation of the primary motor cortex and pyramidal pathway (first level), which was mostly dedicated to avoid hemiplegia, has nonetheless shown its limits to prevent the occurrence of long-term deficits regarding complex movement. Then, preservation of the movement control network (second level) has permitted to prevent such more subtle (but possibly disabling) deficits thanks to intraoperative mapping with direct electrostimulations in awake conditions. Finally, integrating movement control in a multitasking evaluation during awake surgery (third level) enabled to preserve movement volition in its highest and finest level according to patients’ specific demands (e.g., to play instrument or to perform sports). Understanding these three levels of conation and its underlying cortico-subcortical neural basis is therefore critical to propose an individualized surgical strategy centered on patient’s choice: this implies an increasingly use of awake mapping and cognitive monitoring regardless of the involved hemisphere. Moreover, this also pleads for a finer and systematic assessment of conation before, during and after glioma surgery as well as for a stronger integration of fundamental neurosciences into clinical practice. Full article

The exploration of the performance of elite athletes by cognitive neuroscience as a research method has become an emerging field of study in recent years. In the research of cognitive abilities and athletic performance of elite athletes, the tasks of an experiment are usually performed by athletics task of closed skills rather than open skills. Thus, little has been conducted to explore the cognitive abilities and athletic performance of elite athletes with open skills. This study is novel as it attempts at predicting how table tennis athletes perform by collecting their dynamic brain waves when executing specific plays of table tennis, and then putting the data of dynamic brain waves to deep neural network algorithms. The method of this study begins with the collection of data on the dynamic brain waves of table tennis athletes and then converts the time domain data into frequency domain data before improving the accuracy of categorization using a hybrid convolutional neural networks (CNN) framework of deep learning. The findings hereof were that the algorithm of hybrid deep neural networks proposed herein was able to predict the sports performance of athletes from their dynamic brain waves with an accuracy up to 96.70%. This study contributes to the literature in cognitive neuroscience on dynamic brain waves in open skills and creates a novel hybrid deep CNN classification model for identifying dynamic brain waves associated with good elite sports performance. Full article

Motor learning enables preschoolers and children to acquire fundamental skills that are critical to their development. The current study sought to conduct a bibliometric and visualization analysis to provide a comprehensive overview of motor-learning progress in preschoolers and children over the previous 15 years. The number of studies is constantly growing, with the United States and Australia, as well as other productive institutions and authors, at the leading edge. The dominant disciplines were Neurosciences and Neurology, Psychology, Rehabilitation, and Sport Sciences. The journals Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, Human Movement Science, Physical Therapy, Neuropsychology, Journal of Motor Behavior, and Journal of Experimental Child Psychology have been the most productive and influential in this regard. The most common co-citations for clinical symptoms were for cerebral palsy, developmental coordination disorder, and autism. Research has focused on language impairment (speech disorders, explicit learning, and instructor-control feedback), as well as effective intervention strategies. Advances in brain mechanisms and diagnostic indicators, as well as new intervention and rehabilitation technologies (virtual reality, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and transcranial direct current stimulation), have shifted research frontiers and progress. The cognitive process is critical in intervention, rehabilitation, and new technology implementation and should not be overlooked. Overall, our broad overview identifies three major areas: brain mechanism research, clinical practice (intervention and rehabilitation), and new technology application. Full article

Appropriate training burden monitoring is still a challenge for the support staff, athletes, and coaches. Extensive research has been done in recent years that proposes several external and internal indicators. Among all measurements, the importance of cognitive factors has been indicated but has never been really considered in the training monitoring process. While there is strong evidence supporting the use of cognitive demand indicators in cognitive neuroscience, their importance in training monitoring for multiple sports settings must be better emphasized. The aims of this scoping review are to (1) provide an overview of the cognitive demand concept beside the physical demand in training; (2) highlight the current methods for assessing cognitive demand in an applied setting to sports in part through a neuroergonomics approach; (3) show how cognitive demand metrics can be exploited and applied to our better understanding of fatigue, sport injury, overtraining and individual performance capabilities. This review highlights also the potential new ways of brain imaging approaches for monitoring in situ. While assessment of cognitive demand is still in its infancy in sport, it may represent a very fruitful approach if applied with rigorous protocols and deep knowledge of both the neurobehavioral and cognitive aspects. It is time now to consider the cognitive demand to avoid underestimating the total training burden and its management. Full article

This review analyzes the main anatomical structures and neural pathways that allow the generation of autonomous and behavioral mechanisms that regulate body heat in mammals. The study of the hypothalamic neuromodulation of thermoregulation offers broad areas of opportunity with practical applications that are currently being strengthened by the availability of efficacious tools like infrared thermography (IRT). These areas could include the following: understanding the effect of climate change on behavior and productivity; analyzing the effects of exercise on animals involved in sporting activities; identifying the microvascular changes that occur in response to fear, pleasure, pain, and other situations that induce stress in animals; and examining thermoregulating behaviors. This research could contribute substantially to understanding the drastic modification of environments that have severe consequences for animals, such as loss of appetite, low productivity, neonatal hypothermia, and thermal shock, among others. Current knowledge of these physiological processes and complex anatomical structures, like the nervous systems and their close relation to mechanisms of thermoregulation, is still limited. The results of studies in fields like evolutionary neuroscience of thermoregulation show that we cannot yet objectively explain even processes that on the surface seem simple, including behavioral changes and the pathways and connections that trigger mechanisms like vasodilatation and panting. In addition, there is a need to clarify the connection between emotions and thermoregulation that increases the chances of survival of some organisms. An increasingly precise understanding of thermoregulation will allow us to design and apply practical methods in fields like animal science and clinical medicine without compromising levels of animal welfare. The results obtained should not only increase the chances of survival but also improve quality of life and animal production. Full article

A healthy lifestyle is essential for maintaining physical and mental health. Health promotion, with a particular emphasis on regular exercise and a healthy diet, is one of the emerging trends in healthcare. However, the way in which exercise training and nutrients from dietary intake interact with each other to promote additive, synergistic, or antagonistic effects on physiological functions leading to health promotion, and the possible underlying biomolecular mechanisms of such interactions, remain poorly understood. A healthy diet is characterized by a high intake of various bioactive compounds usually found in natural, organic, and fresh foodstuffs. Among these bioactive compounds, astaxanthin (ASX), a red carotenoid pigment especially found in seafood, has been recognized in the scientific literature as a potential nutraceutical due to its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neurotrophic properties. Therefore, scientists are currently exploring whether this promising nutrient can increase the well-known benefits of exercise on health and disease prevention. Hence, the present review aimed to compile and summarize the current scientific evidence for ASX supplementation in association with exercise regimes, and evaluate the additive or synergistic effects on physiological functions and health when both interventions are combined. The new insights into the combination paradigm of exercise and nutritional supplementation raise awareness of the importance of integrative studies, particularly for future research directions in the field of health and sports nutrition science. Full article

Acute high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a time-efficient strategy to improve physical health; however, the effect of acute HIIT on executive function (EF) is unclear. The aim of this study was to systematically review the existing evidence and quantify the effect of acute HIIT on overall EF and the factors affecting the relationship between acute HIIT and EF. Standard databases (i.e., the PubMed, Medline, Scopus, and CENTRAL databases) were searched for studies that examined the effect of acute HIIT on EF and were published up until January 2021. The overall EF and factors grouped by three categories, namely, EF assessment characteristics, exercise intervention characteristics, and sample and study characteristics, were analyzed by percentage of comparison for positive or null/negative effects. Overall, 35 of 57 outcomes (61%) across 24 studies revealed that acute HIIT has a positive effect on overall EF. In terms of factors, the results indicated that among EF assessment characteristics, groups, inhibition, updating, and the assessment occurring within 30 min may moderate the effect of acute HIIT on EF, while among exercise intervention characteristics, total time within 11 to 30 min may moderate the effect. Finally, among sample characteristics, age under 40 years may moderate the effect. Acute HIIT is generally considered a viable alternative for eliciting EF gains, with factors related to EF components, timing of the assessment, exercise total time, and age potentially moderating the effect of HIIT on EF. Full article

Chronic pain and the opioid epidemic need early, upstream interventions to aim at meaningful downstream behavioral changes. A recent pain neuroscience education (PNE) program was developed and tested for middle-school students to increase pain knowledge and promote healthier beliefs regarding pain. In this study, 668 seventh-grade middle-school students either received a PNE lecture (n = 220); usual curriculum school pain education (UC) (n = 198) or PNE followed by two booster (PNEBoost) sessions (n = 250). Prior to, immediately after and at six-month follow-up, pain knowledge and fear of physical activity was measured. Six months after the initial intervention school, physical education, recess and sports attendance/participation as well as healthcare choices for pain (doctor visits, rehabilitation visits and pain medication use) were measured. Students receiving PNEBoost used 30.6% less pain medication in the last 6 months compared to UC (p = 0.024). PNEBoost was superior to PNE for rehabilitation visits in students experiencing pain (p = 0.01) and UC for attending school in students who have experienced pain > 3 months (p = 0.004). In conclusion, PNEBoost yielded more positive behavioral results in middle school children at six-month follow-up than PNE and UC, including significant reduction in pain medication use. Full article