Elite basketball athletes at rest: enhanced sensorimotor activity and reduced cognitive load

Long-term sports training is associated with experience-dependent brain plasticity, but the core functional architecture of open-skill athletes remains unclear. As a representative open-skill sport, basketball requires rapid sensorimotor integration in dynamic settings. This study examined resting-state functional characteristics in elite basketball athletes, focusing on interactions between sensorimotor and advanced cognitive systems. Fifty-seven national first-class basketball athletes (mean age 20.17 ± 1.87 years, twenty-three males) and sixty-one healthy controls (mean age 20.33 ± 1.89 years, twenty-five males) underwent resting-state functional MRI. Fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) and degree centrality (DC) were used to evaluate regional spontaneous activity and overall brain network integration, respectively. Group comparisons controlled for age, sex and head motion. Athletes showed a dual pattern of functional differences. First, athletes showed changed sensorimotor processing: significantly higher fALFF and DC in the superior temporal gyrus, cerebellum (anterior and posterior), parahippocampal gyrus, cuneus, and lingual gyrus, indicating stronger neural substrates for visuospatial integration and motor coordination. Second, athletes showed greater neural efficiency: lower fALFF and DC in the middle frontal gyrus, cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and precuneus (parts of the default mode network), which may reflect enhanced cognitive control and reduced cognitive load. Notably, the insula and midbrain showed a distinct pattern (increased fALFF but decreased DC), indicating a specialized "high-readiness and low-redundancy" state for salience monitoring. Long-term basketball training is associated with distinct patterns of functional brain characteristics, marked by improved sensorimotor processing and greater neural efficiency within cognitive control networks. These training-related neural patterns may serve as biomarkers for athlete evaluation and selection.

Abbreviated summary

Wang et al. report that elite basketball athletes exhibit distinct resting-state functional brain characteristics, including enhanced sensorimotor-related activity and altered cognitive control network organization. These findings suggest that basketball expertise is associated with specialized neural organization supporting the demands of open-skill sports.