Parieto-Occipital Electrocortical Dynamics during Real-World Table Tennis.

Traditional human electroencephalography experiments that study visuomotor processing use controlled laboratory conditions with limited ecological validity. In the real world, the brain integrates complex, dynamic, multimodal visuomotor cues to guide the execution of movement. The parietal and occipital cortices are especially important in the online control of goal-directed actions. Table tennis is a whole-body, responsive activity requiring rapid visuomotor integration that presents a myriad of unanswered neurocognitive questions about brain function during real world movement. The aim of this study was to quantify the electrocortical dynamics of the parieto-occipital cortices while playing a sport with high-density electroencephalography. We included analysis of power spectral densities, event-related spectral perturbations, intertrial phase coherences, event-related potentials, and event-related phase coherences of parieto-occipital source-localized clusters while participants played table tennis with a ball machine and a human. We found significant spectral power fluctuations in the parieto-occipital cortices tied to hit events. Ball machine trials exhibited more fluctuations in theta power around hit events, an increase in intertrial phase coherence and deflection in the event-related potential, and higher event-related phase coherence between parieto-occipital clusters as compared to trials with a human. Our results suggest that sport training with a machine elicits fundamentally different brain dynamics than training with a human. Significance Statement Analyzing high-density scalp EEG from human participants playing table tennis allowed us to examine the precise timing of electrocortical changes in the parieto-occipital cortices during a whole body visuomotor task with high ecological validity. Time-frequency and connectivity analyses revealed earlier broadband desynchronization, more evidence of phase-locked activity, and an increase in coherence between brain regions in ball machine trials than in human trials. These differences likely reflect how humans interpret body and machine cues regarding the trajectory and speed of the oncoming ball, which may have important implications in sport training.