Abstract
Most sports are self-control demanding. For example, during a sprint start, athletes have to respond as fast as possible to the start signal (action initiation) while suppressing the urge to start too early (action inhibition). Here, we examined the cortical hemodynamic response to these demands by measuring activity in the two lateral prefrontal cortices (lPFC), a central area for self-control processes. We analyzed activity within subregions of the lPFC, while subjects performed a sprint start, and we assessed if activation varied as a function of hemisphere and gender. In a counterbalanced within-subject design, 39 participants (age: mean (M) = 22.44, standard deviation (SD) = 5.28, 22 women) completed four sprint start conditions (blocks). In each block, participants focused on inhibition (avoid false start), initiation (start fast), no start (do not start) and a combined condition (start fast; avoid false start). We show that oxyhemoglobin in the lPFC increased after the set signal and this increase did not differ between experimental conditions. Increased activation was primarily observed in ventral areas of the lPFC, but only in males, and this increase did not vary between hemispheres. This study provides further support for the involvement of the ventral lPFC during a sprint start, while highlighting gender differences in the processing of sprint start-induced self-control demands.
Highlights
Winning or losing in a sprint race is determined by milliseconds and is highly dependent on a perfect start [1,2,3,4]
As we could not find a condition effect for the different sprint start sequences, we summarized all four averaged hemodynamic changes to increase the statistical power of the subsequent analyses
In line with previous research, we observed a significant increase in cortical activity in the lateral prefrontal cortices (lPFC) in the timeframe between the Set and Start signal of a sprint start sequence
Summary
Winning or losing in a sprint race is determined by milliseconds and is highly dependent on a perfect start [1,2,3,4]. The sprint start contributes 5% of the overall 100 m race time [5]. In other sports, the start plays a decisive role for the overall performance. In the shortest swimming races (50 m), the start accounts for 33% of the total race time, making it even more important for the overall result [6]. In many different sports, a fast and excellent race start plays a central role in determining the race outcome [7,8,9]. An external attentional focus has been shown to be more effective for the start reaction time than an internal attentional focus [13]
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