Pre-movement neural population activity in human motor cortex reflects the subsequent outcome of futsal free kicks

Abstract Recent sports science studies suggest that optimizing neural activity can enhance motor performance, but practical applications have been hindered by large-scale electroencephalography (EEG) setups and controlled laboratory protocols. In our study, we demonstrate that a portable 3-channel EEG device can predict trial-by-trial success in a futsal-based kicking task under conditions mimicking real-world sports. We employed a model that used a transformer-based encoder and multilayer perceptron decoder, with evaluations performed separately on all electrodes. The model achieved a mean score of approximately 0.68 under cross-validation. We found that significantly higher alpha– and beta-band power contributed to the classification. Our findings indicate that performance prediction is feasible using low-density EEG in a real-world sports scenario. This research provides practical insights that could lead to the development of new training methods to improve performance through the control of brain states. Competing Interest Statement J.U. is a founder and representative director of the university startup company LIFESCAPES Inc., which is involved in the research, development, and sales of rehabilitation devices, including brain-computer interfaces. J.U. and S.I. receive a salary from LIFESCAPES Inc., and J.U. holds shares in LIFESCAPES Inc. This company does not have any relationships with the device or setup used in the current study. The remaining authors have no competing interests to declare.