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In this paper, Chair of Sport Psychology members Kim-Marie Stadler, Julia Schüler and Wanja Wolff investigated oxygenation changes in the prefrontal cortex, while participants were preparing for a sprint start. Replicating previous research, they found that particularly areas in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex were active during the execution of a self-controlled sprint start. Extending previous findings, they found that female participants displayed a less pronounced cortical response to the self-control demands, suggesting that females might process these demands more efficiently. The full abstract of the paper can be found below:

“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.”

This research further advances the understanding of the neuronal foundations of self-control while a person is doing sports. In addition, it highlights potential gender differences in the processing of self-control demands.

The paper can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10080494

The bibliographic information of the paper: Stadler, K.-M., Wolff, W., & Schüler, J. (2020). On Your Mark, Get Set, Self-Control, Go: A Differentiated View on the Cortical Hemodynamics of Self-Control during Sprint Start. Brain Sciences., 10, 494.