Neurodiagnostics in Sports: Investigating the Athlete’s Brain to Augment Performance and Sport-Specific Skills

Abstract

Enhancing performance levels of athletes during training and competition is a desired goal in sports. Quantifying training success is typically accompanied by performance diagnostics including the assessment of sports-relevant behavioral and physiological parameters. Even though optimal brain processing is a key factor for augmented motor performance and skill learning, neurodiagnostics is typically not implemented in performance diagnostics of athletes. We propose, that neurodiagnostics via non-invasive brain imaging techniques such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) will offer novel perspectives to quantify training-induced neuroplasticity and its relation to motor behavior. A better understanding of such a brain-behavior relationship during the execution of sport-specific movements might help to guide training processes and to optimize training outcomes. Furthermore, targeted non-invasive brain stimulation such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) might help to further enhance training outcomes by modulating brain areas that show training-induced neuroplasticity. However, we strongly suggest that ethical aspects in the use of non-invasive brain stimulation during training and/or competition need to be addressed before neuromodulation can be considered as a performance enhancer in sports.

A Review of Neurofeedback Training for Improving Sport Performance From the Perspective of User Experience

“…Compared with EEG, fNIRS is more powerful against motor artifacts and therefore, more suitable to study the neuronal mechanisms in real motor behavior ( Seidel-Marzi and Ragert, 2020 ). Many previous studies have successfully applied fNIRS to study functional brain adaptations during real sports such as playing table tennis, cycling, and climbing ( Balardin et al, 2017 ; Seidel et al, 2019 ; Carius et al, 2020 ), and obtained results difficult to obtain with other technologies.…”

Characterizing hemodynamic response alterations during basketball dribbling

“…It is by no means clear, whether previous knowledge from simple movements is transferable to complex/ whole-body movements. This, however, is particularly of interest, since a better characterization of brain functioning during sport-specific movements could be beneficial on several levels [18]. On the one hand, a profound understanding of brain functioning during complex movements and associated behavioral parameters might help to systematically guide training processes and to optimize training outcomes.…”

Tomographic Task-Related Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy in Acute Sport-Related Concussion: An Observational Case Study

“…There could be different brain activation patterns across individuals with different lifestyles. As a matter of fact, there are multiple variables, such as physical activity, education, type of sport practiced, which can affect the behavior results of neurocognitive tests and the cortical activation detected [ 71 , 72 , 73 ]. Therefore, non-standard brain activation would not necessarily link to impairments due to SRC but could instead be the result of comparisons between different group populations.…”