title: Investigating Neuroanatomical Features in Top Athletes at the Single Subject Level.
abstract: In sport events like Olympic Games or World Championships competitive athletes keep pushing the boundaries of human performance. Compared to team sports, high achievements in many athletic disciplines depend solely on the individual's performance. Contrasting previous research looking for expertise-related differences in brain anatomy at the group level, we aim to demonstrate changes in individual top athlete's brain, which would be averaged out in a group analysis. We compared structural magnetic resonance images (MRI) of three professional track-and-field athletes to age-, gender- and education-matched control subjects. To determine brain features specific to these top athletes, we tested for significant deviations in structural grey matter density between each of the three top athletes and a carefully matched control sample. While total brain volumes were comparable between athletes and controls, we show regional grey matter differences in striatum and thalamus. The demonstrated brain anatomy patterns remained stable and were detected after 2 years with Olympic Games in between. We also found differences in the fusiform gyrus in two top long jumpers. We interpret our findings in reward-related areas as correlates of top athletes' persistency to reach top-level skill performance over years.
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Taubert
authors.affiliation: Institute of General Kinesiology and Athletics Training, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Uwe
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Wenzel
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; LREN, Département des Neurosciences Cliniques, CHUV, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Bogdan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Draganski
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Department of Psychology, Neuroimaging Center, Technical University, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Kiebel
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Institute of General Kinesiology and Athletics Training, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ragert
authors.affiliation: Institute of General Kinesiology and Athletics Training, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Krug
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Arno
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Villringer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D056352:Athletes; D054874:Athletic Performance / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology; D009445:Neuroanatomy / Q000379:methods*; D010807:Physical Endurance / Q000502:physiology; D005082:Physical Exertion / Q000502:physiology; D013788:Thalamus / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D014142:Track and Field / Q000502:physiology*