It is not only difficult to be a sports expert but also difficult to grow from a sports expert to a sports elite. Professional athletes are often concerned about the differences between an expert and an elite and how to eventually become an elite athlete. To explore the differences in brain neural mechanism between experts and elites in the process of motor behavior and reveal the internal connection between motor performance and brain activity, we collected and analyzed the electroencephalography findings (...) of 14 national archers and 14 provincial archers during aiming and resting states and constructed the EEG brain network of the two archer groups based on weighted phase lag index; the graph theory was used to analyze and compare the network characteristics via local network and global network topologies. The results showed that compared with the expert archers, the elite archers had stronger functional coupling in beta1 and beta2 bands, and the difference was evident in the frontal and central regions; in terms of global characteristics of brain network topology, the average clustering coefficient and global efficiency of elite archers were significantly higher than that of expert archers, and the eigenvector centrality of expert archers was higher; for local characteristics, elite archers had higher local efficient; and the brain network characteristics of expert archers showed a strong correlation with archery performance. This suggests that compared with expert archers, elite archers showed stronger functional coupling, higher integration efficiency of global and local information, and more independent performance in the archery process. These findings reveal the differences in brain electrical network topologies between elite and expert archers in the archery preparation stage, which is expected to provide theoretical reference for further training and promotion of professional athletes. (shrink)

Previous literature on shooting performance neurofeedback training (SP-NFT) to enhance performance usually focused on changes in behavioral indicators, but research on the physiological features of SP-NFT is lacking. To explore the effects of SP-NFT on trainability and neuroplasticity, we conducted a study in which 45 healthy participants were randomly divided into three groups: based on sensory-motor rhythm of C3, Cz and C4 (SMR group), based on alpha rhythm of T3 and T4 (Alpha group), and no NFT (control group). The training (...) was performed for six sessions for 3 weeks. Before and after the SP-NFT, we evaluated changes in shooting performance and resting electroencephalography (EEG) frequency power, participant’s subjective task appraisal, neurofeedback trainability score, and EEG feature. Statistical analysis showed that the shooting performance of the participants in the SMR group improved significantly, the participants in the Alpha group decreased, and that of participants in the control group have no change. Meanwhile, the resting EEG power features of the two NFT groups changed specifically after training. The training process data showed that the training difficulty was significantly lower in the SMR group than in the Alpha group. Both NFT groups could improve the neurofeedback trainability scores and change the feedback features by means of their mind strategy. These results may provide evidence of trainability and neuroplasticity for SP-NFT, suggesting that the SP-NFT is effective in brain regulation and thus provide a potential method to improve shooting performance. (shrink)