Same Performance, Different Brains: Biomarkers of Motor Effectiveness from Resting-State EEG in Tennis Players vs. Non-Athletes

Research in sports neuroscience has explored whether resting-state brain activity can predict motor performance. This study investigated whether the pre-task aperiodic 1/f exponent (β) is associated with success in a progressive decision-making task. 12 university-level tennis players (TEN) and 14 non-athlete controls (CON), all right-handed, underwent 64-channel resting-state EEG before and after a motor task involving tennis-ball catching under varying visual cue conditions (simple, choice-reaction, and no-go trials). Success rates were calculated for each task. Both groups performed similarly, with no significant differences in success rates. However, TEN showed a significant pre-to-post decrease in 1/f β over right frontal and left parietal regions, consistent with a shift toward a more activated cortical state, whereas CON showed no changes. A significant pre-post interaction in the right frontal region was driven by greater changes in TEN. Only TEN showed a negative correlation between pre-task 1/f β over the left sensorimotor cortex and success rate, indicating that a lower 1/f β (higher excitability) predicted better performance. These findings suggest that resting-state EEG 1/f may be a candidate biomarker of motor effectiveness in trained athletes, despite no overt performance differences between groups. The left sensorimotor cortex may reflect readiness for action, while the right frontal region may differentiate participants at the neural level.