About this Research Topic
Electroencephalography (EEG) is one of the few neuroimaging methods with excellent time-resolution required to measure rapid brain signal changes that is also lightweight enough to be worn by a moving subject. EEG monitoring in sports science has thus become more common in recent years and has provided new insights into the nature of athlete performance, offering an effective means for neurofeedback training and EEG feature control to improve performance.
The increased use of EEG in sports science application has been aided by the recent advances in EEG data acquisition, hardware portability, and reduced preparation times, although mobile EEG systems are still affected by a number of limitations, the most relevant for sports applications being that signal quality is subject to sweat and motion effects. Recent advances in hardware have made great strides at combating sweat effects on signal quality by developing dry electrode EEG systems. Dry electrode technology, with its unique characteristics of fast electrode preparation, no risks of short-circuits between adjacent electrodes, and long-term recording ability with no signal degradation due to sweat, is admittedly the most suitable one for movement science applications.
While these enhancements have made possible the practical application of EEG in sports science, commercial systems mounting dry electrodes are still affected by the generally low number of electrodes and low sampling frequency, preventing advanced analysis of brain activity, and by low subject comfort due to the electrode shape and material. Also the lack of conductive gel, translates in a much higher electrode/scalp impedance and a higher sensitivity to motion artefacts. Therefore, acquiring informative EEG data from participants actively engaged in physical activity continues to present a number of challenges and deserves the attention of the scientific community.
This Research Topic intends to describe the most recent advancements in dry electrode technology for sport and movement science application, and the newest biosignal processing and classification solutions for dealing with artifacts affecting EEG signals collected during full-body motion. Dry electrode technology, with its short preparation time, miniaturization of hardware components and wireless solutions, permits an ecological EEG data collection to investigate the cognitive and affective processes underlying performance during practice and competition in real settings. Articles on new protocols combining sport-specific tasks and dry electrodes acquisitions to advance the understanding of the neural processes underlying the planning and execution of complex movements and expert actions, and the mechanisms of perception, anticipation, and decision-making in elite athletes are welcome.
Depending on their focus, the articles composing this collection can be published in three different Frontiers journals: Frontiers in Neuroscience, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience and Frontiers in Psychology, and can be in the form of original research, methods, hypothesis and theory, opinions.
Keywords: brain monitoring, dry electrodes, sports science, biosignal analysis, biopotential electrode
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
