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The Athlete's Brain: Cross-Sectional Evidence for Neural Efficiency during Cycling Exercise

The “neural efficiency” hypothesis suggests that experts are characterized by a more efficient cortical function in cognitive tests. Although this hypothesis has been extended to a variety of movement-related tasks within the last years, it is unclear whether or not neural efficiency is present in c...

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Autores principales: Ludyga, Sebastian, Gronwald, Thomas, Hottenrott, Kuno
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4706966/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26819767
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/4583674
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author Ludyga, Sebastian
Gronwald, Thomas
Hottenrott, Kuno
author_facet Ludyga, Sebastian
Gronwald, Thomas
Hottenrott, Kuno
author_sort Ludyga, Sebastian
collection PubMed
description The “neural efficiency” hypothesis suggests that experts are characterized by a more efficient cortical function in cognitive tests. Although this hypothesis has been extended to a variety of movement-related tasks within the last years, it is unclear whether or not neural efficiency is present in cyclists performing endurance exercise. Therefore, this study examined brain cortical activity at rest and during exercise between cyclists of higher (HIGH; n = 14; 55.6 ± 2.8 mL/min/kg) and lower (LOW; n = 15; 46.4 ± 4.1 mL/min/kg) maximal oxygen consumption (VO(2MAX)). Male and female participants performed a graded exercise test with spirometry to assess VO(2MAX). After 3 to 5 days, EEG was recorded at rest with eyes closed and during cycling at the individual anaerobic threshold over a 30 min period. Possible differences in alpha/beta ratio as well as alpha and beta power were investigated at frontal, central, and parietal sites. The statistical analysis revealed significant differences between groups (F = 12.04; p = 0.002), as the alpha/beta ratio was increased in HIGH compared to LOW in both the resting state (p ≤ 0.018) and the exercise condition (p ≤ 0.025). The present results indicate enhanced neural efficiency in subjects with high VO(2MAX), possibly due to the inhibition of task-irrelevant cognitive processes.
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spelling pubmed-47069662016-01-27 The Athlete's Brain: Cross-Sectional Evidence for Neural Efficiency during Cycling Exercise Ludyga, Sebastian Gronwald, Thomas Hottenrott, Kuno Neural Plast Research Article The “neural efficiency” hypothesis suggests that experts are characterized by a more efficient cortical function in cognitive tests. Although this hypothesis has been extended to a variety of movement-related tasks within the last years, it is unclear whether or not neural efficiency is present in cyclists performing endurance exercise. Therefore, this study examined brain cortical activity at rest and during exercise between cyclists of higher (HIGH; n = 14; 55.6 ± 2.8 mL/min/kg) and lower (LOW; n = 15; 46.4 ± 4.1 mL/min/kg) maximal oxygen consumption (VO(2MAX)). Male and female participants performed a graded exercise test with spirometry to assess VO(2MAX). After 3 to 5 days, EEG was recorded at rest with eyes closed and during cycling at the individual anaerobic threshold over a 30 min period. Possible differences in alpha/beta ratio as well as alpha and beta power were investigated at frontal, central, and parietal sites. The statistical analysis revealed significant differences between groups (F = 12.04; p = 0.002), as the alpha/beta ratio was increased in HIGH compared to LOW in both the resting state (p ≤ 0.018) and the exercise condition (p ≤ 0.025). The present results indicate enhanced neural efficiency in subjects with high VO(2MAX), possibly due to the inhibition of task-irrelevant cognitive processes. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2016 2015-12-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4706966/ /pubmed/26819767 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/4583674 Text en Copyright © 2016 Sebastian Ludyga et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ludyga, Sebastian
Gronwald, Thomas
Hottenrott, Kuno
The Athlete's Brain: Cross-Sectional Evidence for Neural Efficiency during Cycling Exercise
title The Athlete's Brain: Cross-Sectional Evidence for Neural Efficiency during Cycling Exercise
title_full The Athlete's Brain: Cross-Sectional Evidence for Neural Efficiency during Cycling Exercise
title_fullStr The Athlete's Brain: Cross-Sectional Evidence for Neural Efficiency during Cycling Exercise
title_full_unstemmed The Athlete's Brain: Cross-Sectional Evidence for Neural Efficiency during Cycling Exercise
title_short The Athlete's Brain: Cross-Sectional Evidence for Neural Efficiency during Cycling Exercise
title_sort athlete's brain: cross-sectional evidence for neural efficiency during cycling exercise
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4706966/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26819767
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/4583674
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