Competitive sport experience is associated with reduced off-field aggression and distinct functional brain connectivity

IF 3.9 2区心理学 Q2 HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM

Psychology of Sport and Exercise Pub Date : 2026-03-01 Epub Date: 2025-12-01 DOI:10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.103051

Yujing Huang , Zhuofei Lin , Chenglin Zhou , Yingying Wang , Mengkai Luan

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

While aggression has been widely studied in clinical and forensic contexts, its expression in healthy individuals, particularly athletes, is less well understood. Competitive sport experience may be linked to trait aggression through experience-related changes in large-scale brain networks, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear.

Objective

This study aimed to examine whether long-term engagement in competitive athletics is associated with intrinsic functional connectivity related to trait aggression, focusing on off-field behaviors.

Methods

We combined group- and individual-level analyses to examine neural correlates of trait aggression in 84 athletes and 106 non-athletes. Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) was assessed using Network-Based Statistics (NBS) for group differences and Connectome-Based Predictive Modeling (CPM) to predict aggression traits from AQ-CV scores.

Results

Athletes scored lower on total aggression and four of the five subscales. NBS identified a widespread subnetwork of stronger connectivity in athletes, spanning nine brain networks. CPM revealed that total and physical aggression were predicted by distributed RSFC patterns, primarily negative associations across prefrontal, motor, and subcortical regions. Self-directed aggression was predicted by a smaller, more selective network. Notably, four overlapping edges linked NBS and CPM findings, connecting group-level differences to individual aggression variability.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that competitive sport experience is associated with distinct functional integration across brain systems involved in emotion regulation and motor control, which may underlie athletes’ reduced off-field aggression. This work provides novel insights into the neural basis of aggression in non-clinical populations and highlights the value of combining multilevel connectivity analyses.

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竞技体育经历与减少场外攻击和明显的功能性大脑连接有关。

背景：虽然攻击性在临床和法医环境中得到了广泛的研究，但其在健康个体，特别是运动员中的表达却鲜为人知。竞技体育经历可能通过大规模大脑网络的经验相关变化与特质攻击有关，但潜在的神经机制尚不清楚。目的：本研究旨在探讨长期参与竞技体育是否与特质攻击相关的内在功能连通性有关，重点研究场外行为。方法：对84名运动员和106名非运动员进行群体和个体水平的分析。静息状态功能连通性（RSFC）采用基于网络统计（NBS）的分组差异和基于连接体的预测模型（CPM）的攻击特征预测。结果：运动员在总攻击性和5个分量表中的4个分量表得分较低。NBS在运动员身上发现了一个更强连接的广泛子网络，横跨9个大脑网络。CPM结果显示，总的攻击行为和肢体攻击行为是由分布的RSFC模式预测的，主要是前额叶、运动和皮层下区域的负相关。自我导向攻击是由一个更小、更有选择性的网络预测的。值得注意的是，四个重叠的边缘将NBS和CPM的发现联系起来，将群体水平的差异与个体攻击变异性联系起来。结论：我们的研究结果表明，竞技体育经历与涉及情绪调节和运动控制的大脑系统的独特功能整合有关，这可能是运动员减少场外攻击的基础。这项工作为非临床人群的攻击行为的神经基础提供了新的见解，并强调了结合多层次连接分析的价值。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Psychology of Sport and Exercise 医学-心理学

CiteScore

6.40

自引率

5.90%

发文量

172

审稿时长

69 days

期刊介绍： Psychology of Sport and Exercise is an international forum for scholarly reports in the psychology of sport and exercise, broadly defined. The journal is open to the use of diverse methodological approaches. Manuscripts that will be considered for publication will present results from high quality empirical research, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, commentaries concerning already published PSE papers or topics of general interest for PSE readers, protocol papers for trials, and reports of professional practice (which will need to demonstrate academic rigour and go beyond mere description). The CONSORT guidelines consort-statement need to be followed for protocol papers for trials; authors should present a flow diagramme and attach with their cover letter the CONSORT checklist. For meta-analysis, the PRISMA prisma-statement guidelines should be followed; authors should present a flow diagramme and attach with their cover letter the PRISMA checklist. For systematic reviews it is recommended that the PRISMA guidelines are followed, although it is not compulsory. Authors interested in submitting replications of published studies need to contact the Editors-in-Chief before they start their replication. We are not interested in manuscripts that aim to test the psychometric properties of an existing scale from English to another language, unless new validation methods are used which address previously unanswered research questions.