Fatigue is a phenomenon of pronounced importance in sports. Recently, there is strong evidence of interplay between the prefrontal cortex and motor output during fatiguing contractions. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPC) due to its large involvement in cognitive and motor activities is believed to be involved but this requires physiological clarification. AIM: We investigated the relationship between DLPC activity - responses in oxyhemoglobin (HbO2) and total hemoglobin (HbT) measured by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and the vastus lateralis muscle (VL) activity - quantified as root-mean-square (RMS) of the EMG signal, during a fatigue protocol.

METHODS: Four male runners (32±12 yrs) with probes for NIRS over the DLPC and EMG over the VL performed a track running test at a constant speed to fatigue (exhaustion). The running speed was individually determined as the average speed of a 1200-m time trial performed ~3 days prior to testing. For NIRS changes in μmole/L of HbO2 and HbT were computed. The VL EMG-RMS of the contraction of each step was normalized as a percent of a submaximal reference contraction (%RMS), thus removing the non-activity between steps. Data of 10s epochs at 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100% of time for each lap were averaged for analyses. Regression analyses performed with HbO2 and with HbT as dependent variables and %RMS as the independent variable.

RESULTS: Over time there was an increase in HbO2 and HbT in the DLPC, and in VL-%RMS. Both HbO2 and HbT correlated strongly with EMG-RMS during running to fatigue (see figures below); p<0.001 for both.

CONCLUSION: The strong relationship between DLPC and VL activities during running to fatigue suggests the involvement of the DLPC in the central processing of fatigue.