Ping-pong players show superior brain structure and function, study finds

Can table tennis, better known as “ping pong,” lead to significant improvements in brain structure and function? New research published in the journal Brain research suggests that it is possible. Researchers found that table tennis players show different patterns of brain activity and structural changes in the brain, including increased white matter integrity in regions associated with motor skills.

Table tennis is one of the fastest open-skill sports in the world, requiring players to quickly track and react to the ball. This requires a high level of cognitive functions such as decision-making, visual attention and executive functions.

Previous studies have shown that sport and skills training can have a positive impact on brain function, but the specific effects of table tennis on brain structure and function remained unclear. The researchers wanted to investigate whether these athletes showed unique neural characteristics and whether these could be linked to improved cognitive skills.

The study included 20 national-level table tennis players, all of whom had been training for more than six years. These athletes were compared to a control group of 21 healthy university students who had not received any systematic motor skills training. The participants were around 22 years old and were matched for age and gender. Both groups underwent a series of brain scans using a 7-Tesla MRI machine, which provides high-resolution images of brain structure and activity.

The MRI scans focused on two key areas: functional connectivity, which examines how different parts of the brain communicate, and white matter integrity, which assesses the health of the brain's communication pathways. The white matter was analyzed using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a technique that measures the diffusion of water molecules in the brain to reveal microstructural properties. The researchers also administered a series of attention tests known as the Useful Field of View (UFOV) test, which measures processing speed, divided attention and selective attention.

The study found that table tennis players showed significant improvements in both brain structure and brain function compared to non-athletes. Specifically, the players showed increased integrity in the white matter tracts of their brains, which are crucial for efficient neural communication.

This was evidenced by higher fractional anisotropy (FA) and axial diffusivity (AD) values ​​in several regions, including the left corticospinal tract and the superior longitudinal fasciculus. These findings suggest that the neurons in these regions have undergone beneficial changes, such as myelination or increased axon diameter, that improve the efficiency of neural transmission.

Moreover, the table tennis players performed better than the control group in attention tasks. The researchers found a significant negative correlation between AD levels in specific white matter tracts and UFOV scores, indicating that better white matter integrity was associated with superior cognitive performance. This suggests that the improved structural connectivity in the brains of table tennis players may contribute to their improved attention and processing speed.

Additionally, the study highlighted unique patterns of dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) in the athletes’ brains. These players showed increased dFC in areas such as the hippocampus, cerebellum and lingual gyrus, which are involved in memory, motor coordination and visual processing. This dynamic connectivity, which changes over time, reflects the brain’s ability to adapt and reconfigure its neural networks in response to the demands of the fast and complex movements required in table tennis.

Limitations of the study include a small sample size, which may limit the generalizability of the findings, and the absence of novice table tennis players, making it difficult to determine how brain changes progress with different levels of training and experience. Future research could involve larger groups of participants and include athletes at different skill levels to track neural and cognitive changes over time.

Nevertheless, the findings highlight the potential cognitive benefits of participating in sports that require quick reflexes and high levels of coordination, suggesting that such activities not only improve physical fitness but also promote mental agility and nervous system health.

“Our findings suggest that professional table tennis training may lead to plastic changes in white matter structure and functional connectivity in the brain, which could be related to the high demand for visual attention and information processing speed in table tennis,” the researchers concluded.

The study, “Long-term table tennis training alters dynamic functional connectivity and white matter microstructure in large-scale brain areas,” was written by Chanying Zheng, Yuting Cao, Yuyang Li, Zhoucheng Ye, Xize Jia, Mengting Li, Yang Yu, and Wenming Liu.