fNIRS, Balance, and Performance: Cortical Activity in Alpine Skiers

Balance is not only a muscular function. When an athlete stands on one leg, adjusts the body, calculates inclination, controls the center of mass, and prepares the next movement, the whole brain participates in this dance. In Alpine skiing, this dynamic becomes even more intense, because every turn requires precision, speed, proprioception, and postural control in an unstable environment.

The study by Khan, Redondo, Engell, Ombao, and Mirtaheri investigated exactly this relationship between balance performance and cortical hemodynamics in young Alpine skiers using fNIRS. The scientific question was clear: does single-leg stance demand greater cortical activation than dual-leg stance? The authors also investigated whether right-leg and left-leg stance would produce different activation patterns. 

The experimental design compared single-leg stance — SLS and dual-leg stance — DLS. Dynamic balance performance was assessed with the Modified Hop Balance Test — MHBT, while fNIRS was used to observe cortical hemodynamic changes associated with postural control. Differences between experimental conditions were tested with a functional mixed-effects model, which captures common patterns across participants while also accounting for individual variation in brain responses. 

The main finding is very interesting: single-leg stance produced higher cortical activation than dual-leg stance. This suggests that when balance becomes more challenging, the brain increases its participation in postural control. The body does not “balance itself” alone. It reorganizes visual, vestibular, proprioceptive, motor, and attentional information to maintain stability. 

Another important result was that no significant differences were found between left-leg stance and right-leg stance in cortical hemodynamics or balance performance. This suggests relatively equal stimulation of the motor cortex in the young skiers studied. For trained athletes, this symmetry may be a highly relevant finding: perhaps Alpine skiing training develops bilateral control capacity, reducing functional asymmetries between sides. 

The strength of the article is that it shows that sports performance cannot be reduced to strength, speed, or muscular technique. Balance is a body-brain intelligence. fNIRS becomes a very appropriate tool because it allows cortical hemodynamics to be measured during tasks that are closer to the athlete’s real bodily experience, with fewer restrictions than traditional neuroimaging environments.

From the BrainLatam2026 perspective, this study speaks directly to APUS, the body-territory. The skier is not only “on the snow.” The skier is incorporating snow, inclination, speed, equipment pressure, body axis, and movement anticipation. Balance emerges when the body feels the territory before verbally thinking about it.

The Damasian Mind also enters here: interoception and proprioception as the basis of consciousness in action. The athlete feels internal micro-adjustments, pressure under the feet, muscle tension, breathing, fear, confidence, and movement direction. Performance emerges when these signals stop being noise and become refined bodily orientation.

The avatar-lens of this blog can be APUS with Jiwasa. APUS perceives the body-territory; Jiwasa perceives synchrony between body, environment, and task. In Alpine skiing, performance happens when the athlete stops being an isolated body and begins to function as body-snow-inclination-speed. It is shared agency between organism and environment.

This study also helps us think about Tensional Selves. In a beginner, single-leg stance may generate excessive tension, fear, rigidity, and high cortical demand. In a trained athlete, activation may become better organized: not necessarily lower, but more efficient, more distributed, and more functional. The BrainLatam2026 question would be: does high performance appear as more cortical activation or as better economy between cortical activation, breathing, EMG, HRV, and bodily stability?

A future experimental design could combine fNIRS + EEG + EMG + inertial sensors + force platform + respiration + HRV/RMSSD + GSR. fNIRS would observe motor, premotor, and prefrontal cortex. EEG would capture fast electrical dynamics. EMG would show muscle patterns. Inertial sensors and force platforms would measure sway and stability. Respiration and HRV would indicate autonomic regulation. GSR would show sympathetic activation during challenge.

This design would allow comparison between beginners, intermediate athletes, and elite athletes. The question would be: the more trained the skier is, the more the body can transform instability into motor fruition? In other words, the elite athlete would not eliminate tension; they would organize it into a functional Tensional Self, capable of responding to the territory without entering rigidity.

The generous decolonial critique is that sports studies often look at performance as individual optimization. BrainLatam2026 would expand this: performance is also belonging to territory. In skiing, the territory is snow, mountain, cold, speed, and controlled risk. In Latin American contexts, we could study surfers, capoeira practitioners, dancers, trail runners, football players, Indigenous traditional bodily practices, and children’s balance games.

The bridge with DREX Cidadão appears when we remember that high performance should not be a privilege for only a few. A body with safety, food, sleep, school, territory, and belonging learns better. A public policy that reduces social anergy can create more children in Zone 2: more available bodies, more coordination, more attention, more motor creativity, and more capacity to learn from territory.

Closing
This study shows that balance is brain, body, and territory working together. fNIRS allows us to observe cortical hemodynamics while the body faces real postural challenges. For BrainLatam2026, the question goes beyond skiing: how do we measure the bodily intelligence of a human being in motion? The answer passes through APUS, Jiwasa, the Damasian Mind, and a neuroscience that does not separate performance, belonging, and territory.

Single Reference
Khan, H., Redondo, P. V., Engell, H., Ombao, H., & Mirtaheri, P. (2026). Evaluating cortical activity and balance performance in Alpine skiers: An fNIRS study. Human Movement Science, 105, 103432. doi:10.1016/j.humov.2025.103432. (PubMed)