Top footballers have brains that are wired to anticipate the moves of their opponents, scientists have discovered.
The research may explain why stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo are so good at intercepting the ball.
It suggests experienced players develop a mental ability making them less likely to fall for deceptive moves.
Scientists at Brunel University tested 39 players, ranging from novices to semi-professionals, who lay in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scanner while watching clips of an opposing team member dribbling the ball towards them.
When the oncoming player performed a deceptive manoeuvre, participants had to decide in which direction to move. At the same time, their brain activity was monitored.
Experienced footballers were more attuned to the actions and deceptive ploys of the opponent than novices.
Their performance was reflected in stronger activation of the brain's mirror neuron system (MNS) when predicting an opponent's actions.
The MNS is active not only when carrying out an action, but also when viewing the action performed by others.
There was clear evidence of greater brain recognition of opponents' movements among more skilful players.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article