ArticleFrontiers in psychology2019
Neural Efficiency and Acquired Motor Skills: An fMRI Study of Expert Athletes.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of mental fatigue on lower-limb explosive power and anaerobic capacity: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Pooled it
- The Neural Mechanism of Long-Term Motor Training Affecting Athletes' Decision-Making Function: An Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Neural Efficiency in Athletes: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Motivational Coaching Cues Can Modulate Prefrontal Cortex Activity and Perceptual Responses of Elite Football Players During High-Intensity Interval Training: A Randomised Crossover fNIRS Study.European journal of sport science · 2026Trial
- The effects of intensive mindfulness interventions on athletes' psychological states and cognitive performance: an fNIRS study.BMC psychology · 2026Trial
- Differences in motor imagery abilities in active and sedentary individuals: new insights from backward-walking imagination.Psychological research · 2024Trial
- Learning-related population dynamics in right and left dorsal premotor cortex during typing skill acquisition.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Supplementary Motor Area During Motor Actions in Athletes With Neurological Disorders: Observational Study of Cases and Controls.Brain and behavior · 2026Observational
- Cardiac Efficiency as a Potential Marker of Firefighter Expertise: A Pilot Study of Heart Rate Variability Monitoring in Realistic Search-and-Rescue Training.Translational sports medicine · 2026Article
- Neural correlates of map representation and spatial orientation in orienteering experts: an fNIRS study.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Dynamic Brain Activation and Connectivity in Elite Golfers During Distinct Golf Swing Phases: An fMRI Study.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Kinematic Analysis of the Lower Limb in Uchi-Mata: Comparison Between Elite Athletes Specializing and Non-Specializing.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2025Article
- Article
- Non-verbal joint action in healthy adults: a systematic scoping review of EEG-hyperscanning research.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Article
- The Effect of Mental Training on Psychological Hardiness and Selected Personality Traits among Adolescent Male Volleyball Players.International journal of exercise science · 2025Article
- EEG theta and alpha oscillations during tactical decision-making: An examination of the neural efficiency hypothesis in volleyball.PloS one · 2025Article
- Brain mechanisms discriminating enactive mental simulations of running and plogging.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- Altered spontaneous regional brain activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and visual area of expert table tennis athletes.Brain imaging and behavior · 2024Article
- Effects of coach-delivered verbal encouragement on the physiological and psychological responses of adolescent players in small-sided basketball games.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The neural efficiency hypothesis was investigated. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to study the differences in brain activity between athletes imagining performing different movements: basketball athletes imagined throwing and volleyball athletes imagined serving. These comparisons of brain activity among athletes imagining movements from their self-sport (e.g., a basketball throw in basketball athletes) versus movements from other sport (e.g., a volleyball serve in basketball athletes) revealed the neural energy consumption each task costs. The results showed better temporal congruence between motor execution and motor imagery and vividness of motor imagery, but lower levels of activation in the left putamen, inferior parietal lobule, supplementary motor area, postcentral gyrus, and the right insula when both groups of athletes imagined movements from their self-sport compared with when they imagined movements from the other-sport. Athletes were more effective in the representation of the motor sequences and the interoception of the motor sequences for their self-sport. The findings of present study suggest that elite athletes achieved superior behavioral performance with minimal neural energy consumption, thus confirming the neural efficiency hypotheses.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.