Which neural processes underlie expert sport performance? How do our brains evolve with training? Since the 1990s – known as the decade of the brain – brain imaging (e.g. fMRI, PET scans etc.) has shed light on the neural basis of different psychological disorders.

More recently, rather than simply exploring the pathology of brain, researchers have become concerned with the neural changes that occur with the development of expertise.

From such research, a number of fascinating insights into the neuroscience of ball games have emerged.

Perhaps the most important one is that expert players typically show less brain activation, but greater cortical efficiency, than novice counterparts. For example, whereas expert baseball hitters tend to activate mainly the supplementary motor areas of the brain when they imagine hitting, novice players tend to activate the limbic regions (e.g. the amygdala and basal forebrain complex) which generally regulate emotions such as fear and anxiety.

This activation of the limbic region suggests that novice players have a difficulty in filtering out irrelevant information as they prepare to execute their swings.

Studies with both golf and diving showed that there are differences in the diffusion of activity between experts and novices during simulation of their activities.

Currently, we are on the crest of the wave of neuroscience and this domain will illuminate our understanding of expert sports performance in the future.