Investigation of individual and team athletes' motor imagery ability with prefrontal cortex activity and attention variables

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate athletes' motor imagery abilities and attention skills in terms of sport type and gender factors, and to examine the changes in prefrontal cortex activities during motor imagery and attention processing through EEG. Method: Thirty individual and 30 team athletes between the ages of 18-26 with at least 3 years of licensed sports background participated in the study. "Movement Imagery Questionnaire-Revised (MIQ-R)" and "Stroop Color-Word Test (SCWT)" were applied to participants. Before these tests, baseline activity was recorded with eyes open and closed for 2 minutes. Besides, EEG records were taken during mental stages of the MIQ-R and third stage (incongruent) of the SCWT. Changes in alpha (8-12 Hz), low beta (12-20 Hz), and high beta (20-30 Hz) band powers that occurred during stimuli were evaluated. Findings: There was no significant difference in the kinesthetic and visual imagery scores and SCWT scores of the athletes according to gender and sport type factors (p>.05). During kinesthetic and visual motor imagery, it was found that alpha band power decreased significantly in the prefrontal cortex, while low beta and high beta band power increased significantly (p<.05). There was no significant relationship between kinesthetic and visual imagery scores and prefrontal cortex activity levels (p>.05). During the SCWT, a significant increase in low beta and high beta band power was detected for both hemispheres of the prefrontal cortex (p<.05). During the SCWT, it was determined that female athletes showed greater prefrontal activity changes than male athletes (p<.05). Conclusion: In this study, in which the subjective motor imagery ability scores and attention skills of the athletes were examined by combining them with objective methods; It was found that there was no significant relationship between imagery ability scores and both attention skills and prefrontal cortex activity. When the parameters are examined separately, it is thought that results that will contribute to the literature are reached. Keywords: motor (movement) imagery, EEG, prefrontal cortex, attention, stroop.