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Observational Study
. 2021 May 14;11(1):10376.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-89947-1.

Modulation of sensorimotor cortical oscillations in athletes with yips

Affiliations
Observational Study

Modulation of sensorimotor cortical oscillations in athletes with yips

Tatsunori Watanabe et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The yips, an involuntary movement impediment that affects performance in skilled athletes, is commonly described as a form of task-specific focal dystonia or as a disorder lying on a continuum with focal dystonia at one end (neurological) and chocking under pressure at the other (psychological). However, its etiology has been remained to be elucidated. In order to understand sensorimotor cortical activity associated with this movement disorder, we examined electroencephalographic oscillations over the bilateral sensorimotor areas during a precision force task in athletes with yips, and compared them with age-, sex-, and years of experience-matched controls. Alpha-band event-related desynchronization (ERD), that occurs during movement execution, was greater in athlete with yips as compared to controls when increasing force output to match a target but not when adjusting the force at around the target. Event-related synchronization that occurs after movement termination was also greater in athletes with yips. There was no significant difference in task performance between groups. The enhanced ERD is suggested to be attributed to dysfunction of inhibitory system or increased allocation of attention to the body part used during the task. Our findings indicate that sensorimotor cortical oscillatory response is increased during movement initiation in athletes with yips.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Visual gain manipulation and schema of experimental setup and paradigm. The spatial amplitude of visual feedback was larger at higher visual gain (A). The subject produced force to place the blue bar between two green bars as accurately and steadily as possible and stopped contraction when color of these bars turned red (B). The bars were red for 5 s and green for 3 s. Event-related de/synchronization was computed using a baseline interval of − 1500 to − 500 ms with respect to force onset (C).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Grand average event-related spectral perturbation at C3 electrode. Dashed vertical line presents force onset. The color scale indicates the relative change from a baseline (− 1500 to − 500) in decibel (dB), with red being positive values and blue negative values. The last column indicates the area of statistically significant difference between groups, and the last row indicates the area of statistically significant difference between low and high visual gains (p < 0.05 with FDR correction, shown in brown). The plot at the bottom right presents the statistically significant interaction between group and visual gain. The red and blue squares indicate the force increase phase and force control phase, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Grand average event-related spectral perturbation at C4 electrode. Dashed vertical line presents force onset. The color scale indicates the relative change from a baseline (− 1500 to − 500) in decibel (dB), with red being positive values and blue negative values. The last column indicates the area of statistically significant difference between groups, and the last row indicates the area of statistically significant difference between low and high visual gains (p < 0.05 with FDR correction, shown in brown). The plot at the bottom right presents the statistically significant interaction between group and visual gain. The red and blue squares indicate the force increase phase and force control phase, respectively.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Box plots of mean force error (MFE) and coefficient of variation (CV) of force. The median and interquartile ranges are presented with whiskers representing the maximum and minimum values. Small circles show outliners. The daggers indicate a significant main effect of visual gain.

References

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