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Brazilian soccer player Neymar's brain activity while dancing past opponents is less than 10 percent the level of amateur players, hinting that he plays as if on auto-pilot, according to Japanese neurologist.

"From MRI images we discovered Neymar's brain activity to be less than 10 percent of an amateur player," researcher Eiichi Naito told AFP on Friday.

"It is possible genetics is a factor, aided by the type of training he does."

A series of motor skills tests were carried out on the 22-year-old star soccer player and several other athletes in Barcelona in February this year.

The results indicated minimal cerebral function when Neymar rotated his ankle pointing to the Barcelona striker's wizardry being uncannily natural.

The test also included three Spanish second-division footballers and two top-level swimmers.

"The test results provide valuable evidence that the football brain of Neymar recruits very limited neural resources in the motor-cortical foot regions during foot movements," Naito concluded in his paper.

The findings of the study have been published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.