Efficient foot motor control by Neymarâ€™s brain

Eiichi Naito,Satoshi Hirose

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00594

Abstract

How very long-term (over many years) motor skill training shapes internal motor representation remains poorly understood. We provide valuable evidence that the football brain of Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior (the Brasilian footballer) recruits very limited neural resources in the motor-cortical foot regions during foot movements. We scanned his brain activity with a 3-tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while he rotated his right ankle at 1 Hz. We also scanned brain activity when three other age-controlled professional footballers, two top-athlete swimmers and one amateur footballer performed the identical task. A comparison was made between Neymar’s brain activity with that obtained from the others. We found activations in the left medial-wall foot motor regions during the foot movements consistently across all participants. However, the size and intensity of medial-wall activity was smaller in the four professional footballers than in the three other participants, despite no difference in amount of foot movement. Surprisingly, the reduced recruitment of medial-wall foot motor regions became apparent in Neymar. His medial-wall activity was smallest among all participants with absolutely no difference in amount of foot movement. Neymar may efficiently control given foot movements probably by largely conserving motor-cortical neural resources. We discuss this possibility in terms of over-years motor skill training effect, use-dependent plasticity, and efficient motor control.

Highlights

It is well-established that motor practice induces plastic changes in the human central motor system even in adults
Karni et al (1995) demonstrated the expansion of M1 activation associated with the acquisition of motor skills when the local blood oxygenation leveldependent (BOLD) signal is evaluated with functional magnetic resonance imaging
We focus on the motor-cortical foot regions of professional footballers and provide valuable evidence that the football brain of Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior substantially reduces the recruitment of foot motor regions during foot movements

Summary

Introduction

It is well-established that motor practice induces plastic changes in the human central motor system even in adults. When people practice a novel hand motor skill, the central motor representation in the hand section of the primary motor cortex (executive locus of voluntary motor control: M1) expands when they repeat the practice for days or weeks (Karni et al, 1995; Pascual-Leone et al, 1995). A non-human primate study revealed that the overyears training of a motor skill with a forelimb substantially decreases the 14C-2-deoxyglucose (2DG) uptake widely in the forelimb section of M1 even when the monkeys perform the acquired motor skill (Picard et al, 2013). A similar training effect should be observed in the BOLD signals of human participants who have performed overyears physical training, e.g., sport training

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Conclusion