Investigating Neuroanatomical Features in Top Athletes at the Single Subject Level

PLoS One. 2015 Jun 16;10(6):e0129508. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129508. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

In sport events like Olympic Games or World Championships competitive athletes keep pushing the boundaries of human performance. Compared to team sports, high achievements in many athletic disciplines depend solely on the individual's performance. Contrasting previous research looking for expertise-related differences in brain anatomy at the group level, we aim to demonstrate changes in individual top athlete's brain, which would be averaged out in a group analysis. We compared structural magnetic resonance images (MRI) of three professional track-and-field athletes to age-, gender- and education-matched control subjects. To determine brain features specific to these top athletes, we tested for significant deviations in structural grey matter density between each of the three top athletes and a carefully matched control sample. While total brain volumes were comparable between athletes and controls, we show regional grey matter differences in striatum and thalamus. The demonstrated brain anatomy patterns remained stable and were detected after 2 years with Olympic Games in between. We also found differences in the fusiform gyrus in two top long jumpers. We interpret our findings in reward-related areas as correlates of top athletes' persistency to reach top-level skill performance over years.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Athletes*
  • Athletic Performance / physiology
  • Brain / anatomy & histology*
  • Corpus Striatum / anatomy & histology
  • Gray Matter / anatomy & histology
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Muscle, Skeletal / physiology
  • Neuroanatomy / methods*
  • Physical Endurance / physiology
  • Physical Exertion / physiology
  • Thalamus / anatomy & histology
  • Track and Field / physiology*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the European Union, European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Free State of Saxony within the framework of the Excellence Initiative to LIFE- Leipzig Research Centre for Civilization Diseases at the University of Leipzig (MT). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.