Influence of cognitive-motor expertise on brain dynamics of anticipatory-based outcome processing

Motor experience plays an important role in the ability to anticipate action outcomes, but little is known about the brain processes through which it modulates the preparation for unexpected events. To address this issue, EEG was employed while table tennis players and novices observed videos of serves in order to predict the expected ball direction based on the kinematics of a model's movement. Furthermore, we manipulated the congruency between the model's body kinematics and the subsequent ball trajectory while assessing the cerebral cortical activity of novices and experts to understand how experts respond to unexpected outcomes. Experts were more accurate in predicting the ball trajectories than novices and were further differentiated from novices in the cortical dynamics just prior to ball contact and during the period of observation of the ball trajectories. Consistent with the predicted response-outcome model, experts exhibited elevated theta oscillations during the incongruent relative to the congruent trajectories, while no such differences were observed in the novices. Source estimation for theta activity revealed stronger activation in the middle frontal gyrus for the experts in response to the incongruent trajectories. Collectively, the observed differences in cortical dynamics between the groups suggest that motor experience promotes central neural system adaptations that facilitate preparation for anticipated outcomes and contributes to adaptive cognitive-motor responses in the face of uncertainty.