The Influence of Endurance Running Experience on Brain Function: Based on Action Observation and Motor Imagery

To investigate the impact of endurance running experience on brain functional plasticity, a total of 14 elite endurance runners and 14 healthy college students participated in action observation and motor imagery tasks while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. The results revealed that, irrespective of the task (observation or imagery), endurance running athletes exhibited significantly higher levels of activation in the left cerebellum and right middle frontal gyrus compared to the control group. And in the observation task, the activation levels in these two regions for the athletes were positively correlated with their level of athletic skill. Moreover, during the observation task, the athlete group demonstrated stronger functional connectivity between the right middle frontal gyrus and the left inferior occipital gyrus, as well as the right superior parietal gyrus, compared to the control group. However, during the imagery task, the athlete group exhibited diminished functional connectivity between the right middle frontal gyrus and the right inferior occipital gyrus in comparison to the control group. These findings indicate that endurance running experience affects the functional activity of brain regions related to motor control, and also alters the functional coupling between areas involved in motor control and visual processing. These results reflect the adaptive changes in brain function induced by endurance running.