Neural activation patterns underlying football decision-making: evidence for the neural proficiency hypothesis

Football decision-making requires the rapid integration of perceptual and cognitive information under complex and dynamic conditions. While elite players consistently outperform novices, the neural mechanisms underlying this expertise remain underexplored. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a realistic video-based decision-making paradigm, we compared brain activation patterns in 20 elite and 20 novice football players. Experts demonstrated significantly higher decision accuracy and faster reaction times. Both groups showed widespread cortical and subcortical activation, yet experts exhibited greater engagement of frontal and parietal cortices and reduced reliance on occipital visual areas. Conjunction and functional decoding analyses revealed that experts preferentially recruited regions related to working memory, semantic processing, visuospatial attention, and conflict monitoring. Activation intensity in the precuneus, angular gyrus, and middle cingulate cortex positively correlated with decision accuracy within the expert group. These findings provide neuroimaging evidence that superior decision-making in elite athletes is supported by enhanced recruitment and integration of higher-order cognitive networks, consistent with the Neural Proficiency Hypothesis. The results extend current understanding of how domain-specific experience reorganizes neural systems to support expert performance in complex, open-skill sports.