Playing sports — including football, soccer and hockey — increases the gain of the external sound signal by turning down the background noise in the brain, according to new research from Northwestern University.
Playing sports has many benefits, including boosting physical, cardiovascular, and mental fitness. Image credit: Mike Kaplan / U.S. Air Force photo.
“No one would argue against the fact that sports lead to better physically fitness, but we don’t always think of brain fitness and sports,” said Professor Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University.
“We’re saying that playing sports can tune the brain to better understand one’s sensory environment.”
Professor Kraus’ team examined the brain health of 495 female and male student athletes and 493 age- and sex-matched control subjects.
The researchers delivered speech syllables to study participants through earbuds and recorded the brain’s activity with scalp electrodes.
They analyzed the ratio of background noise to the response to the speech sounds by looking at how big the response to sound was relative to the background noise.
Athletes had an enhanced ability to tamp down background electrical noise.
“A serious commitment to physical activity seems to track with a quieter nervous system,” Professor Kraus said.
“And perhaps, if you have a healthier nervous system, you may be able to better handle injury or other health problems.”
The findings could motivate athletic interventions for populations that struggle with auditory processing.
“In particular, playing sports may offset the excessively noisy brains often found in children from low-income areas,” Professor Kraus said.
The results were published online this week in the journal Sports Health.
_____
Jennifer Krizman et al. Play Sports for a Quieter Brain: Evidence From Division I Collegiate Athletes. Sports Health, published online December 9, 2019; doi: 10.1177/1941738119892275
