一项新的研究表明，进行体育运动，甚至只是观看体育运动，也可能有助于更好地理解语言，该研究表明冰球运动员和球迷的大脑可以更好地处理与冰球有关的语言。
此前的研究已经表明从事体育运动可以改变感觉和运动神经回路，而学习一门语言可以改变大脑支持语言的区域的神经连接。Sian Beilock及其同事如今发现从事一项体育运动，甚至去观看一场比赛，可以改变大脑中涉及处理体育语言的区域的活动。
这组科学家让12位冰球运动员、8位球迷和9位从未观看过冰球的人接受了一组语言测试。受试者听到关于人们日常生活的句子，或者关于冰球运动的句子，例如射门或者救球。尽管所有的受试者都迅速听懂了关于日常生活的句子，冰球运动员和球迷在理解与冰球有关的句子方面的表现要远远好于不懂冰球的人。磁共振成像分析表明当冰球运动员和球迷听到关于这种运动的句子的时候，他们的大脑的特定区域出现了活动，这些区域是用于安排和执行熟悉的身体活动。这组作者提出，这种活动的增加帮助了冰球运动员和球迷理解冰球的语言。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
PNAS published ahead of print September 2, 2008,doi:10.1073/pnas.0803424105
Sports experience changes the neural processing of action language
Sian L. Beilock, Ian M. Lyons, Andrew Mattarella-Micke, Howard C. Nusbaum, and Steven L. Small
Experience alters behavior by producing enduring changes in the neural processes that support performance. For example, performing a specific action improves the execution of that action via changes in associated sensory and motor neural circuitry, and experience using language improves language comprehension by altering the anatomy and physiology of perisylvian neocortical brain regions. Here we provide evidence that specialized (sports) motorexperience enhances action-related language understanding by recruitment of left dorsal lateral premotor cortex, a region normally devoted to higher-level action selection and implementation—even when there is no intention to perform a real action. Experience playing and watching sports has enduring effects on language understanding by changing the neural networks that subserve comprehension to incorporate areas active in performing sports skills. Without such experience, sport novices recruit lower-level sensory-motor regions, thought to support the instantiation of movement, during language processing, and activity in primary motor areas does not help comprehension. Thus, the language system is sufficiently plastic and dynamic to encompass expertise-related neural recruitment outside core language networks.
