The Influence of Sports Training on the Brain Plasticity of Athletes:An ALE Analysis of fMRI Studies

Objectives:To clarify whether sports training can affect brain functional plasticity and how acquiring athletes induces cortical reorganization in different sports task states.Methods:Selected 362 subjects' functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging(fMRI) data in the task state of 18 studies,and used Activation Likelihood Estimation(ALE) to calculate the distribution of voxels.Results:Athletes' brain activity in the task state produced four activation clusters;in the control group,the brain activity in the task state produced five activation clusters;compared with control group,athletes activated Left Superior Parietal Lobule and Inferior Parietal Lobule,Right Inferior Frontal Gyrus and Middle Frontal Gyrus.Compared with athletes,control group activated Suppl ementary Motor Area.In prediction task,athletes had wider activation of brain regions,while in execution task,control group had wider acti vation.Conc.lusions:long-term sports training has resulted in functional plasticity changes in athletes' brains,which are manifested in in the reduction of brain activity related to motor control during execution,and the increase of brain activity related to cognitive understanding in the prediction.