Regions with altered probabilistic grey volume in the somatosensory-motor cortex of handball players derived from the voxel-based morphometric group analysis (A-C) and the correlation analysis (D and E).

<p>The statistical parametric maps (shown in red yellow) were height-thresholded at p < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparisons using permutation-based non-parametric testing across space (FSL’s randomise tool, 5000 permutations). Increased grey matter volume was evident (A) in the bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA) and cingulate motor area (CMA) and (B) in the right primary motor and somatosensory cortex (MI and SI) and (C) in the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Age of handball training commencement was negatively correlated with grey matter volume in four small clusters, two clusters located in the right MI/SI region (D) and two clusters located in the left MI/SI region (E). The regions of interest subjected to the statistical analysis are shown in graded green. x, y, z represent coordinates of the Montreal neurological institute (MNI) stereotactic space.