Physiological perspectives in Esports: A scoping review of research trends, underlying processes, and emerging opportunities

Esports place distinctive cognitive and physiological demands on players, yet research in this area remains fragmented across disciplines and methods. To clarify the current state of this emerging field, this scoping review, reported with reference to the PRISMA-ScR, synthesizes 85 empirical studies drawn from computer science, bioengineering, psychology, neuroscience, and related areas. Bibliometric analyses using CiteSpace were used to map research trends and thematic patterns, while descriptive qualitative synthesis was used to examine physiological measures, preprocessing procedures, analytical methods, subjective instruments, and the cognitive-behavioral relevance of reported findings. The review shows that esports physiology research is increasingly organized around stress and arousal, attention and cognitive performance, multimodal monitoring, and performance-related assessment, while also revealing substantial variation in study design, measures, and interpretive scope. This review provides a structured map of the literature, identifies current methodological and thematic gaps, and outlines directions for future psychophysiological research in esports.