Sport-Specific Cardiovascular Fitness, Cognition, and Motor Performance: An Electrophysiological Study of Athletes' P300 and LRP Brainwave Potentials

The present study investigated the relationship among fitness level, sport specificity, and cognitive ability using behavioral and electrophysiological measures. As college-aged cross-country runners, basketball players, and non-athletes completed a visual attention task, their accuracies, reaction times, P300 event-related potential components (reflective of cognitive categorization abilities), and LRP components (reflective of motor preparation processes) were determined. The hypotheses were that high fit athletes would show superior cognitive abilities (shorter P300 latencies, larger P300 amplitudes, and more accurate responses) than low fit non-athletes and that basketball players would show the largest LRP components because their sport requires quick visuomotor skills. The results indicated that exercise affected the P300 and the LRP. Specifically, both types of athletes (with higher fitness levels than control subjects) seemed to demonstrate an increased ability to inhibit distracting information, thereby suggesting superior executive functioning and selective attention abilities, as well as superior simple motor preparation abilities The results suggest that physical activity influences specific cognitive and motor processes rather than general information-processing abilities and that most fitness effects are independent of sport specificity