Right inferior frontal contributions to visual spatial suppression and visuomotor performance.

Abstract

Background: Elite racket sports demand visuomotor responses at the millisecond level, requiring rapid prioritization of task-relevant information while suppressing competing or redundant signals. Such perceptual filtering is reflected in spatial suppression, which declines with aging and in clinical cognitive disorders. This study investigated whether visual spatial suppression in expert table tennis players (TTPs) was linked to visuomotor reaction time, and whether prefrontal-visuomotor dynamics were associated with this link.

Methods: We examined 28 expert TTPs and 31 healthy controls using 7-Tesla MRI and psychophysical methods. Specifically, behavioral measures included visual spatial suppression and visuomotor reaction time (RT); an attentional cueing paradigm was used to quantify criterion shifts. Brain measures included gray matter volume (GMV) and static versus dynamic functional coupling between the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) and visuomotor cortex.

Results: TTPs showed faster visuomotor reaction times and stronger spatial suppression than healthy controls (P < 0.001 and P = 0.007, respectively). Within TTPs, faster RTs were associated with stronger suppression. Structurally, GMV in rIFG tracked suppression and attentional criterion shifts (Δc: 0.371 ± 0.086 vs 0.034 ± 0.079; P = 0.006). Functionally, dynamic (but not static) coupling between rIFG and the left postcentral gyrus (lPoCG) was associated with suppression strength (large-grating thresholds, partial r = 0.595, P = 0.002) and visuomotor RT (partial r = -0.436, P = 0.033) and statistically mediated the relationship between suppression and RTs.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates the association between visuomotor reaction speed and spatial suppression in TTPs, and identifies rIFG-lPoCG dynamics as a systems-level index linking these perceptual and behavioral advantages. These cross-sectional findings suggest that perceptual filtering and rapid visuomotor behavior are correlated in expert performance.