Selective cortical adaptations associated with neural efficiency in visuospatial tasks – the comparison of electroencephalographic profiles of expert and novice artists

• Published in: Neuropsychologia 2024-06, Vol.198, p.108854, Article 108854
• Main Authors: Morrone, Jazmin M., Pedlar, Charles R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptation, Physiological - physiology; Adult; Alpha-waves; Brain Mapping; Cerebral Cortex - physiology; EEG; Electroencephalography; ERD/ERS; Female; Humans; Male; Neural efficiency; Space Perception - physiology; Visual Perception - physiology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108854

Visuospatial cognition encapsulates an individual's ability to efficiently navigate and make sense of the multimodal cues from their surroundings, and therefore has been linked to expert performance across multiple domains, including sports, performing arts, and highly skilled tasks, such as drawing (Morrone and Minini, 2023). As neural efficiency posits a task-specific functional reorganization facilitated by long-term training, the present study employs a visuospatial construction task as a means of investigating the neurophysiological adaptations associated with expert visuospatial cognitive performance. Electroencephalogram (EEG) data acquisitions were used to evaluate the event-related changes (ER%) and statistical topographic maps of nine expert versus nine novice artists. The expert artists displayed overall higher global ER% compared to the novices within task-active intervals. Significant increases in relative ER% were found in the theta (t (10) = 3.528, p = 0.003, CI = [27.3,120.9]), lower-alpha (t (10) = 3.751, p = 0.002, CI = [28.2,110.5]), upper-alpha (t (10) = 3.829, p = 0.002, CI = [50.2,189.8]), and low beta (t (10) = 4.342, p