Brain structure and how hard you can punch

An interesting bit of research. However, as a point of discussion for me  the question is... Has karate practice changed a persons brain connections or did that person have them anyway. Did that organisation help them to be a good puncher? It's a bit like asking the question which came first the chicken or the egg? It's the nature versus nurture debate.

It would be more interesting to do a long term study and follow a karateka's journey from novice to expert and map changes over a long time to show that karate practice develops brain changes.

Personally I think this is a bit of a no brainer...

Although I think it is nice that they used martial artists as subjects, this is not something new. Infact the development of motor skills and neural pathways is something that I believe has been well understood for sometime in Biology.

Basically practice makes perfect, the more you practice an activity the more you re-enforce particular neural pathways and other brain physiology and the better you become at performing the activity... the opposite is also true, lack of practice will make you rusty. This is no different from Driving, knitting or performing swan lake. 

What this research does is re-enforce the point that performing a karate punch is no different from doing any other physical activity and practicing your fundamentals is essential.  There are a number of other implications of "developing your karate brain through training" but a couple that will be close to the heart of  our community are:

• Train as you mean to fight
• Visualisation is very important - don't just go through the motions.

Cheers

Tom

Mr P wrote:

Has karate practice changed a persons brain connections or did that person have them anyway. Did that organisation help them to be a good puncher? It's a bit like asking the question which came first the chicken or the egg? It's the nature versus nurture debate.

In this case I feel we can be certain it is the practice that has changed the brain structure on the basis that all the karateka had that structure and the non-karateka did not. If it were just randomly distributed then surely one of the non-karateka would have had the “karate brain” and been able to hit accordingly? I think we can be confident the scientist have observed what they say they have observed when they state, “The DTI signal also correlated with the age at which karate experts began training and their total experience of the discipline.” Definitely nurture then seeing as there is a direct coloration with duration of training.

Th0mas wrote:

Personally I think this is a bit of a no brainer...

Although I think it is nice that they used martial artists as subjects, this is not something new. In fact the development of motor skills and neural pathways is something that I believe has been well understood for sometime in Biology.

I get what you are saying with regards to general idea or motor skills, but I think the fact they have used martial artists has lead them to finding something new. The report states that, “Brain scans have revealed distinctive features in the brain structure of karate experts, which could be linked to their ability to punch powerfully from close range.” So what they are observing is “distinctive” and has been directly liked to punching power.  They are open about the fact that “our findings are consistent with earlier research showing that the cerebellum plays a critical role in our ability to produce complex, coordinated movements” but what is new is the observation of a structure specifically linked to punching power. The control group were “of similar age who exercised regularly but did not have any martial arts experience.” As regular exercisers they will have developed neural pathways specific to the forms of exercise and the sports that they do, but they did not have this specific structure related to punching power which has been identified for the first time.

All the best,

Iain

Hi Iain

That is an interesting detail.

I am assuming they chose Karateka because they were looking for subjects who do something quite unique compared with "general sports" (if such a thing exists) which the researchers could identify in the brain scans.

I think what the reseachers have demonstrated with this experiment is that each unique activity you measure in this way would have a distinct pattern in the brain scan. You could compare a golf swing between a novice vs a professional player and it would show different patterns.

I felt that the way this has been reported in the media is somewhat misleading, as everything we do "comes from the brain"

Here is a link to the actual paper on the above study of karateka’s brain structure and it’s relation to powerful punches:

http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/08/08/cercor.bhs219.full

The reason the scientists got excited is found here: "This is the first example of a link between human cerebellar white matter and motor control measures in an elite sporting group.This has implications for our understanding of the role of white matter connectivity in motor coordination, the relationship between measures of white matter microstructure and elite performance, and how brain changes may be related to the stage of development in which learning begins. As the relationship between behavior and measures of brain structure is only beginning to be understood, it is important to carefully consider such findings within the context of the existing literature and our understanding of the brain systems involved."

It seems it is this "white matter" observation that got them excited: "the karate experts demonstrate a highly significant focal difference in the microstructure of white matter bilaterally in the cerebellum, which is negatively correlated with the degree of temporal motor coordination and the number of years experience in the left SCP. The age at which training began was also significantly positively correlated with FA in both left and right SCPs. These data suggest that the stage in development that karate instruction began and the duration of training are associated with differences in the microstructure of white matter in the SCPs and the ability to coordinate rapid multi-joint movements. "

Isn’t science fun! :-)

All the best,

Iain

Lol.. yes it is. :-)

The devil is always in the detail...

"The age at which training began was also significantly positively correlated with FA in both left and right SCPs. These data suggest that the stage in development that karate instruction began and the duration of training are associated with differences in the microstructure of white matter in the SCPs and the ability to coordinate rapid multi-joint movements."

This is also interesting, basically it seems to suggest that the earlier you start (or to be more precise the younger you are when you start), the easier it is for you to learn to "get good" at karate punching. It certainly enforces the commonly held view that it is easier to learn things when your're young.

It would also seem to indict that the neralogical connections for in close power hitting are, if not universal, similar enough to have recognizable form.  That to me points toward some universal physical mechanics.  Meaning that we have plenty in common despite some of the finer details.  It's always amazing to see how the body literally affects the brain over time.

Hello - my first post here!

These sorts of studies are very interesting to me, but most scientific studies rely on certain assumptions, and correlations with stastical evidence that may at first blush support a certain hypothesis, but on further examination aren't safe to base further assumptions on because they do not control for extenuating factors.

For example, wrt age being an important factor in developing neural pathways, we cannot be 100% sure that the reason younger people do not develop them more quickly and ably simply by virtue of being young, because the process of developing nueral pathways (aka learning) is a habit they happen to be in due to their stage in life, and that 'learning' itself is a skill that can be practised.

It may come to the same thing - a young person who is practised at learning because that is the stage in life they are in - is able to learn more effectively/efficiently, so the correlation exists anyway. But it is the presumtion that it is merely because they are young that is unsafe....although in all likelihood probably true to some extent.

I'm a classical musician by professional training - the dynamics of learning a skill is very interesting to me. You can learn a lot more effiiciently if you are aware of how the brain learns. The parallels between learning to play an instrument with learning a martial skill is very great indeed.