Training the brain to play the game: a single-case study of personalized action observation training in an elite basketball player

Optimizing motor learning in sports ideally requires procedures influencing both the physical and cognitive dimensions of performance. The Action Observation Training (AOT) operationalizes this principle by combining action observation, motor imagery, and physical practice and has shown promise in facilitating skill acquisition. However, evidence for its ecological applicability remains scarce.

Here, we developed an on-court AOT protocol for basketball shooting, administered it to a single player and examined whether it was associated with biomechanical and behavioral changes over time. A single basketball player completed a self-modelled AOT program targeting three shooting gestures. Outcomes were examined both behaviorally, by collecting the training session scores and match performances, and biomechanically, by tracking his movement kinematics before and after training.

Behaviorally, the player performed the trained movements more frequently during official matches after the training, a finding compatible with a potential transfer of benefits to competition and increased confidence in recalling the trained skills. Biomechanically, upper-limb movement kinematics appeared more compact and efficient than baseline, a pattern apparently preserved at a six-month follow-up (conducted only for one of the three gestures). Overall, this proof-of-concept indicates that AOT can be transferred to ecological sport settings, tailored on individual performance, and complemented with behavioral and biomechanical measures.

These considerations support the feasibility of the proposed approach and, along with the single-case report, encourage the AOT use as a brain-informed complement to traditional training methods. Controlled studies with larger samples are still needed to provide proof of evidence of the ecological-AOT efficacy in basketball, and sports in general. This work was supported by the Fondazione Cariparma under Grant Sensor, number 1842/2024; INAIL under Grant VIRTUALIZE, number PR23-CR-P4; #NEXTGENERATIONEU (NGEU), funded by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR), National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), project EBRAINS-Italy (IR00011).

Department of Movement, Human and Health Sciences, University of Rome Foro Italico, piazza Lauro de Bosis, 15, Rome, 00135, Italy Institute of Neuroscience, National Research Council of Italy (CNR), via Volturno, 39- E, Parma, 43125, Italy Paolo Presti, Alessandro Ciraolo, Pietro Avanzini & Maddalena Fabbri-Destro Pallacanestro Fulgor Fidenza, via Palmiro Togliatti, 42, Fidenza (PR), 43036, Italy Correspondence to Maddalena Fabbri-Destro. The authors declare no competing interests. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Procedures have been approved by the CNR research ethics and integrity committee (project QUASAR, dated 22 September 2022) and informed consent was obtained from the athlete. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.