Use It or Lose It: A Guide to Synaptic Pruning and the Impact on Future Sports Performance

The human brain is an amazing and complex organ, and nowhere is this more evident than in the first few years of life. From the moment a baby is born, their brain is already hard at work, forming connections and developing new neurons at a rapid pace. By the time a child reaches the age of three, they have twice the number of connections as an adult!

(Imagine terrible infomercial voice) “Hold on this doesn’t make sense!? … Age 3… Twice as many connections as an adult…How is that possible!? … You must be pulling my chain”. Well, terrible infomercial voice, let me explain. As we grow and develop, our brains also undergo a process called synaptic pruning. This is when the brain starts to eliminate unused neurons and synapses, in order to make room for the connections that it deems most active and useful. These connections are then "supercharged" and made more efficient, creating brain maps.

Let’s make this clearer using a sports metaphor. Who doesn’t love a good sports metaphor? (If you just thought “me”, then please skip to the next paragraph). Think of it like a football coach on a tight budget having to trim the roster and deciding which players to keep on the team. The coach wants to keep the players who are the most skilled and experienced and who are ultimately able to contribute to the team's success. Meanwhile, he needs to reduce the wage bill and let go of players who are not performing up to par. Similarly, the brain "cuts" unnecessary connections and neurons in order to keep only the most useful ones. Back to our metaphor, the players that make the cut then practice the coaches plays to the point where they feel like second nature. The team are now much more likely to perform them well on matchday. This is just like the strengthening of utilized brain cells and synapses that lead to the formation of brain maps.

Brain maps are essentially neural pathways that are formed through repeated use. They are the foundation of automatic behaviors, sometimes referred to as muscle memory in athletes. ‘Muscle memory’ is actually a misleading term, but that’s for another article! It is the formation of these brain maps that drives the rapid improvements we see in children's motor skills up to the age of five and beyond.

So, how does this process relate to sports performance? When it comes to learning a new skill, such as a tennis serve, there is often an initial fast stage of learning where the basics are quickly learned and new connections are made. This is followed by a slow stage of learning, where lots of repetitive practice is needed to retain those connections and refine them over time. Once a brain map is created and hardwired, an athlete will still be able to perform the skill to some level, even after a long break.

This is why it is so important for infants to practise their fundamental movement skills during the early years of map building. These skills provide the building blocks for more advanced skills later on in their sporting development. For example, having strong connections between the eyes and hands from infancy can make it easier to develop the brain map for a tennis serve later on.

Brain maps are essentially neural pathways that are formed through repeated use. It is the formation of these brain maps that drives the rapid improvements we see in children's motor skills up to the age of five and beyond.

By age 5 you won’t know which sport your child will eventually end up dedicating themselves to, well at least you shouldn’t! (I’m looking at you pushy parent! Put those plans on living your own failed dreams through your child away). With this in mind, it is even more important to build and maintain a range of fundamental movement brain maps that can be applied to all sports. Here is an example of the alternative. Your child spends the first 5-10 years of life repeating the same swimming specific skills. However, when they decide their passion actually lies with basketball, they don’t have the neural connections in place to transition effectively. Instead they have to build them from scratch, leaving them behind their peers.

In conclusion, synaptic pruning is a crucial process in the development of the brain, allowing us to eliminate unnecessary connections and strengthen the ones that are most useful. It plays a vital role in the development of motor skills in children and has the potential to impact future sports performance. So, the next time you see your little one practising their fundamental movement skills, just remember that they are laying the foundation for future sporting success.