Testing a neuroassessment task for spatial attention skills in combat sports

Background: Performance data can serve as a valuable tool for\r\nassessing the strengths and weaknesses of athletes, evaluating their\r\ndevelopmental progress, customizing training methods to individual\r\nneeds, and estimating their overall potential. However, challenges\r\narise in the practical application of skills evaluation due to outdated\r\nmethodologies and imprecise metrics for measuring performance and\r\nskills. Aims: The aim of this study was to test a task tapping on spatial\r\nattention abilities in combat sports athletes using an ecological neuroassessment methodology. Methods: We compared athletes engaged\r\nin combat sports (CS) vs. other sports (OS; e.g, tennis, basketball)\r\nthrough a neuroassessment protocol focused on attention skills.\r\nComputerized tasks were complemented with electrophysiological\r\nrecordings, specifically electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs). This study focuses on spatial attention by\r\nemploying an ecological digitalized cueing task where participants\r\nwere required to block hand and foot strokes originating from various\r\nlocations, preceded by either valid or invalid cues. Results: Data\r\nanalysis revealed reduced response times coupled with a decrease in\r\nthe amplitude of the parietal P3 ERPs component for valid trials\r\ncompared to invalid trials in combat sports. Furthermore, an increased\r\npeak-to-peak latency for the central P3 component was observed in\r\ncombat sports compared to other sports for invalid trials. Conclusion:\r\nConsistent with the neural efficiency hypothesis, the findings suggest\r\ninternally coherent profiles across various dimensions of attention\r\nregulation performance, emphasizing the potential of the proposed\r\nneuroassessment methodology in elucidating cognitive aspects of\r\nathletic performance in combat sports.