The Architecture of the Golfer's Brain

Abstract

BackgroundSeveral recent studies have shown practice-dependent structural alterations in humans. Cross-sectional studies of intensive practice of specific tasks suggest associated long-term structural adaptations. Playing golf at a high level of performance is one of the most demanding sporting activities. In this study, we report the relationship between a particular level of proficiency in playing golf (indicated by golf handicap level) and specific neuroanatomical features.Principal FindingsUsing voxel-based morphometry (VBM) of grey (GM) and white matter (WM) volumes and fractional anisotropy (FA) measures of the fibre tracts, we identified differences between skilled (professional golfers and golfers with an handicap from 1–14) and less-skilled golfers (golfers with an handicap from 15–36 and non-golfer). Larger GM volumes were found in skilled golfers in a fronto-parietal network including premotor and parietal areas. Skilled golfers revealed smaller WM volume and FA values in the vicinity of the corticospinal tract at the level of the internal and external capsule and in the parietal operculum. However, there was no structural difference within the skilled and less-skilled golfer group.ConclusionThere is no linear relationship between the anatomical findings and handicap level, amount of practice, and practice hours per year. There was however a strong difference between highly-practiced golfers (at least 800–3,000 hours) and those who have practised less or non-golfers without any golfing practise, thus indicating a step-wise structural and not a linear change.

The effects of golf training in patients with stroke: a pilot study

“…Furthermore, as mentioned in the introduction it is in line with a study of Jäncke et al (2009) who showed that skilled golfers had higher grey matter volumes in the intraparietal sulcus, a brain area which is also activated during a MRT (Jordan et al, 2001). The result that golf, a coordinative sport, can have influence on MRT is comparable to other studies investigating motor training on MRT.…”

Training of Working Memory Impacts Structural Connectivity

“…Such tests were performed because participants were university students who studied and played sports in their daily lives, possibly affecting brain structure (Draganski et al, 2006;Jäncke et al, 2009), and also because there may simply be time-lapse changes in brain structure (Barnea-Goraly et al, 2005). We did not perform a correlation analysis using working memory performance improvement as a covariate because in our study, the improvement of performance seems to be rather affected by participants' initial performance (see Results for details).…”

Training-Induced Neural Plasticity in Golf Novices

“…From these studies, one can conclude that skill acquisition or performance improvement induces specific structural changes in brain areas demanded by the practiced task (Gaser and Schlaug, 2003;Jäncke et al, 2009;Hänggi et al, 2010). Recent longitudinal neuroimaging studies focused on the impact of motor trainings lasting several days or weeks in untrained subjects and showed adaptations in both neural gray (Draganski et al, 2004;Driemeyer et al, 2008) and white (Scholz et al, 2009;Taubert et al, 2010) matter.…”