Abstract
Many studies have reported that exercise can influence cognitive performance. But advancing our understanding of the interrelations between psychology and physiology in sports neuroscience requires the study of real-time brain dynamics during exercise in the field. Electroencephalography (EEG) is one of the most powerful brain imaging technologies. However, the limited portability and long preparation time of traditional wet-sensor systems largely limits their use to laboratory settings. Wireless dry-sensor systems are emerging with much greater potential for practical application in sports. Hence, in this paper, we use the BR8 wireless dry-sensor EEG system to measure P300 brain dynamics while cycling at various intensities. The preparation time was mostly less than 2 min as BR8 system’s dry sensors were able to attain the required skin-sensor interface impedance, enabling its operation without any skin preparation or application of conductive gel. Ten participants performed four sessions of a 3 min rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task while resting and while cycling. These four sessions were pre-CE (RSVP only), low-CE (RSVP in 40–50% of max heart rate), vigorous-CE (RSVP in 71–85% of max heart rate) and post-CE (RSVP only). The recorded brain signals demonstrate that the P300 amplitudes, observed at the Pz channel, for the target and non-target responses were significantly different in all four sessions. The results also show decreased reaction times to the visual attention task during vigorous exercise, enriching our understanding of the ways in which exercise can enhance cognitive performance. Even though only a single channel was evaluated in this study, the quality and reliability of the measurement using these dry sensor-based EEG systems is clearly demonstrated by our results. Further, the smooth implementation of the experiment with a dry system and the success of the data analysis demonstrate that wireless dry EEG devices can open avenues for real-time measurement of cognitive functions in athletes outside the laboratory.
Highlights
The current thinking in sports neuroscience is that athletic performance can be improved by developing a winning brain
Ensemble averaging method involves averaging all the target trials to extract the event related potential from EEG background activity (Luck, 2014) and is a commonly employed method to reliably detect and amplify the P300 wave (Rakotomamonjy and Guigue, 2008; Mak et al, 2011; Shi et al, 2012; Bekdash et al, 2015; Vareka and Mautner, 2015).During preliminary analysis, we evaluated the amplitude of P300 wave in the C3, C4, and Pz channels, the maximum amplitude was observed in the Pz channel as reported widely in the literature (Polich, 2007; Lin et al, 2015)
We show that it is possible to measure brain dynamics accurately and reliably during a cycling exercise using dry-sensor EEG systems
Summary
The current thinking in sports neuroscience is that athletic performance can be improved by developing a winning brain. Definitive proof, demands better understandings of the links between the brain and physical behavior and some innovative biometric measurement tools (Park et al, 2015) In this regard, brain imaging is providing a new approach to training by revealing deeper insights into the interrelations between psychology and physiology in sports science. EEG measurements use the time and/or frequency dynamics of electrical activity in the brain to infer what types of cognitive processes are taking place. As such, they have been used extensively to explain a person’s brain state during sport and exercise (Cheron et al, 2016; Perrey and Besson, 2018). EEG indexes have been used to study: the differences in brain activity between champions and novices (Del Percio et al, 2008; Babiloni et al, 2010; Cheng et al, 2015; Wang and Tu, 2017; Wang et al, 2019) and to maintain optimal sporting performance through neurofeedback training (NFT) (Cheng et al, 2015; Mirifar et al, 2017; Xiang et al, 2018)
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