INDIVIDUAL VARIABILITY IN BRAIN SLOW-WAVE PROFILES IN SKILLED SHARPSHOOTERS DURING THE AIMING PERIOD IN RIFLE SHOOTING

Preshot brain slow potential (SP) shifts from frontal, central, centro -lateral, and occipital areas were recorded for 12 national-caliber sh arpshooters during rifle-shooting performance. The aim of the study wa s to examine the intra-and intersubject variation in these SP profiles and to compare the superior performance to the poor performance. The results revealed that each shooter responded with one main SP profile in both performance categories. The other profiles represented outlier s rather than substantial variation. The main profiles differed from s ubject to subject, presumably indicating several shooting styles. Fina lly, the main profiles related to high and low score shots could be di fferentiated, but this differentiation varied from subject to subject. The results were interpreted as showing that a shooter tends systemat ically to carry through a learned performance pattern, which is reflec ted in the main SP profile of the superior shots. If the shooter fails to follow this pattern, the shot is preceded by different SP changes.