What happens in the prefrontal cortex? Cognitive processing of novel and familiar stimuli in soccer: An exploratory fNIRS study.

This fNIRS study examines differences in the prefrontal activity of soccer experts during general and sport-specific cognitive tasks.In general cognitive tasks, increased prefrontal activity changes were detected, whereas lower cortical activity changes during sport-specific cognition were found.These findings support the "repetition suppression theory" and earlier findings on the processing of novel stimuli in the prefrontal cortex (PFC).The differences in the cortical processing of general and sport-specific tasks of soccer players might be caused by altered prefrontal structures of experts and could be of special importance for expertise in soccer.