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Motorsports are all about pushing the very limits of man and machine. As a Mercedes AMG F1 Team Leader Engineer since 2013, I know that a huge amount of time, expertise and money are committed to ensure racing cars performance at their best. But for the person inside the car, not so much. Likely a lot of the success of drivers or pilots comes from them nurturing their own talent. As a Formula BMW race driver myself, I've been searching for ways to find an extra gear of motorsports performance. Here I'll cover why the cognitive dimension of racing is so important, and why discovering NeuroTracker has accelerated my career development.

Honing Performance

Achievements in F1 are mostly earned in preparation for racing. Obviously, a lot of work goes into the car, but the driver is the most important part of the car,, and their preparation is paramount. So on top of all my engineering, I actually focus a lot on ways to develop myself as a driver. Aside from physical exercises, this includes things like simulator training, race video review and track performance stats analysis.

There’s a lot to think even before you start a competition, but one thing that is critical is being mentally sharp and on top form when the race begins. If you're not fully prepared, you're not racing!

Discovering the Racing Benefits of NeuroTracker

As I’m a person who’s very interested in personal development, the first time I tried NeuroTracker I was very intrigued. That led me to look into a lot of the sports science research done with elite athletes. The rapid benefits from training told me there was something potentially very useful here. So I jumped right into using it for myself and quickly started to realize that speeds I thought would be impossible for anybody, became surprisingly achievable with training.  That was a great realization.

One of the first things that struck me in terms of the training transferring to the track, was for peripheral vision awareness when you’re trying to maintain situational awareness. Typically, when you have several cars around you, your attention is constantly overloaded. It’s not simply a case keeping an eye on different things, but predicting multiple racing lines and driver behaviors to anticipate overtake opportunities and threats, or to avoid crashing.

With NeuroTracker training I found that I needed to rely less on actually looking at many different things separately. Instead, I could monitor a whole load of things going on at the same time. The upside to this is being able to confidently push myself harder in competition.

NeuroTracker in the Race Simulator

Not many people realize that race drivers regularly push their cars to the limit, but rarely push themselves physically or mentally to the limit, simply because the risks are so high on the track. Using physical dual-tasks like exercise bike to elevate heartrate is one way to allow me to overload myself both mentally and physically to simulate the pressures of the track and develop resilience under fatigue.

Unlike on the track, I can push myself safely to my very limits, and also it really helps that NeuroTracker scores show when you are actually adapting to these kinds of demands.  This concept led me to experiment if I could get more out of my racing simulator and NeuroTracker training by combining them. In the video below I introduce how I integrated the NeuroTracker training directly into my race simulator application.

Taking Things to the Next Level

This approach follows the NeuroTracker dual-task methodology that’s been studied in research, but in this case, the dual-task is the exact same training I would normally do. The goal was principally to push myself beyond the normal limits of simulator training, but it also works the other way with NeuroTracker.

As you can see in the video it’s extremely difficult, which mirrors research done combining NeuroTracker in a jet plane simulator and live flight. This is why I lowered the number of targets tracked, but again I’m adapting quite quickly with training. It’s opened a whole new real estate for self-improvement that’s highly specific to my performance needs.

One way this has impacted a key aspect of my driving skill, is that I now have the confidence to keep my gaze centered around the horizon of my race line. This is where it needs to be in order to optimally position the car for each upcoming corner - which is why it’s one of the key things stressed in professional driver training. That said, it’s also very difficult to do under the pressures of chaotic high-speed racing. So often you find you just have to focus things around the car.

This increased ability to confidently look where I know I want to look, rather than where I feel I have to look, really paid dividends. First on the simulator and then on the race track, I saw drops in lap times as a result of better racing lines. When you dedicate yourself to betterment, yet find it increasingly difficult to keep making strides, it can come as a Eureka moment when you discover a new way to untap your potential.

Follow James Wingfield Racing

I’m really excited to apply this form of cognitive training to racing and take it as far as it will go. If you’re interested in motorsports performance, then you are more than welcome to join a like-minded community and follow James Wingfield Racing. I’m also more than happy to engage in discussions or provide advice on anything I have expertise in.

James Wingfield Racing | YouTube

James Wingfield Racing | Facebook

Lastly, here is an interview I did recently with the NeuroTracker team.

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With covid-19 continuing to affect the world, researchers have looked into options for treatments. Choosing CBD products for COVID-19 can have innumerable benefits. Now that CBD products are legal throughout the country, they can play a crucial role during this pandemic.

CBD has several compounds, such as terpenes, flavonoids, and cannabinoids, that can benefit covid-19 patients. Cannabinoids are immune modulators that influence macrophage activity in the body. When you choose CBD for coronavirus, its anti-inflammatory properties can help reduce the effect of the virus. However many of these benefits also apply to the wellness challenges we have all been facing during prolonged lockdowns. Here are mind-blowing facts about CBD and coronavirus.

1. CBD Can Prevent the Severity of COVID Symptoms

Choosing CBD as a health supplement for coronavirus can help reduce the severity of the symptoms in the body. The compound increases the levels of an apelin peptide that reduces lung inflammation.  It works by lowering the cytokine storm damaging the lungs in covid-19 patients. This cytokine superstorm contributes to the symptoms of cough, fever, and muscle pain that can damage a patient.

When you include CBD in your COVID-19 treatment, you can induce an immune response associated with coronavirus. According to researchers, the extracts impact the expression of ACE2 proteins in human cells that are an entry point for the virus. Using CBD in a mouthwash or throat gargle may help prevent covid-19 infections.

2. CBD can Reduce Immune System overactivity

Coronavirus acts on the immune system overactivity that increases the risk of mortality in individuals with pre-existing conditions. The virus targets the lungs and causes inflammation that threatens its functioning. Using CBD can reduce the inflammation that leads to sepsis. The compound has antifungal and antibacterial properties that reduce inflammation and ease several symptoms.

Individuals with underlying conditions such as diabetes can benefit from CBD products by Sunday Scaries to improve overall body immunity. CBD can help reduce this impact for better health outcomes. Cannabinoids in CBD act on the CB receptors to reduce the acute inflammatory response that helps the lungs work.

3. CBD May Help Prevent the Progression of COVID-19 Symptoms

Lung inflammation due to coronavirus could lead to pneumonia that causes breathing difficulties for patients with a weakened immune system. Without treatment, the symptoms can progress from fever to fatigue and problems in breathing. CBD therapies taken through inhalation can provide the relief needed to prevent this progression.

Adding CBD to your nutritional regimen can help prevent the progression of covid-19 symptoms. The compound can reduce excessive lung inflammation, enabling improvements in lung function. It may also repair some structural damage to the lungs and improves oxygen levels. The compounds in CBD can help improve the regulation of apelin. These cannabinoids could reduce the risks associated with dangerous levels of lung inflammation caused by covid-19.

4. CBD to Reduce Anxiety and Depression

CBD has therapeutic benefits beyond the anti-inflammatory properties. It can be effective against symptoms such as anxiety and depression. The compound is a mood enhancer that can improve the mood of anyone feeling anxious and stressed. When you add CBD to your nutrition, the cannabinoid works on the body’s endocannabinoid system to induce a feeling of calmness and relaxation needed to beat depression.

The pandemic has caused uncertainty in several areas such as social networks, job security, and the economy, leading to a rise in depression and anxiety. People are living in fear and uncertainties that can cause detrimental mental conditions. They may experience psychological and social stressors from the virus since they isolate themselves from their family and friends. This is why it is important to integrate CBD products into your treatment regimen.

5. Covid-19 Can Cause Muscle Relaxation

People have been using CBD products to stay calm and relax amidst the storm of a pandemic. One symptom of the virus is muscle fatigue and tiredness due to an inflammation of the body tissues. The condition causes the body to lose weight as a nondescript symptom. Cytokines cause the fatigue that the immune system produces when under attack.

People are experiencing extreme fatigue where they feel dull and find it difficult to concentrate on anything. As the body works to fight off an infection, you become tired and experience aches and pains.

CBD may boost the supply of endocannabinoids in the body to cause relaxation and help deal with fatigue. Many people use CBD to get better quality sleep and facilitate recovery from fatigue. The body needs sleep to balance hormones and performance biological maintenance, as well as consolidate memory formation. Patients can use CBD to improve sleep quality during the pandemic, without causing drowsiness.

6. CBD Can Provides Pain Relief

Choosing CBD for coronavirus can help reduce all forms of pain, such as headaches resulting from the infection. The anti-inflammatory properties of CBD can help the body deal with pain and inflammations caused by the virus. If you report chest pains, adding CBD can reduce the discomfort.

The cannabinoid compound in CBD products works on the body’s endocannabinoid system to treat pain and promote a calm feeling. Rather than using synthetic drugs such as aspirin, you can use CBD to treat the pain symptoms and ease inflammation. This makes it a noble companion for individuals who contract the virus.

The Bottom Line

As the threat of coronavirus persists worldwide, people are looking towards CBD products to supplement the treatments. CBD has a high safety margin and can effectively reduce COVID-induced lung inflammation and reduce the psychological effects of the virus. Integrating CBD products can help reduce the extent of the infection on the body, as well as offer many benefits in coping with the physical and psychological health challenges of ongoing confinement.

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If you're interested in improving sleep quality during the pandemic, then also check out this Expert's Corner blog.

What is Coronasomnia and How to Beat It?

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I'm proud of my four sons. Two achieved incredible things in Olympic Weightlifting, breaking a number of British U23 and schoolboy records, and two played for Manchester United's First Team and Reserves. All of them have become exceptional coaches in their fields. However it's Shaun, the youngest, who epitomizes something I've always believed about 'power' - it's much less about brawn and strength, and more about speed and agility. There's a video here of him launching almost twice his bodyweight from the floor into the air.

Power Versus Strength

Most people might think it looks like raw strength, but in fact it's dominantly explosive power where speed is absolutely critical. Surprisingly, if you suddenly removed the bar mid-lift he would literally shoot up into the air! In fact, one of the training exercises my lads did early on was two footed jumps onto mats from standing – launching up onto a pile stacked neck high!

With those sorts of forces, you need agility and skill to make sure every muscle and joint channel that power in the most bio-mechanically efficient way. When it comes to Olympic Weightlifters, it's better to think of their closest athletic contemporaries being gymnasts rather than strongmen.

I took what I learned from coaching Olympic Weight-Lifting at the international level, and applied it to my sons' football careers. The results? They earned their places at the world's biggest sports club, and it was primarily through physical prowess, rather than talent. This stood out to the coaches at Manchester United, as well as 'the boss' Sir Alex Ferguson, which is why they hired me at a time when strength and conditioning was virtually non-existent in the Premier League. Carrying the baton, my eldest son Michael Clegg, is now the First Team's strength and power coach.

The Ronaldo Example

Building up power was something I focused on a lot with Cristiano Ronaldo in daily training during his meteoric 6-year rise with the club. You can see the sheer power he has developed over his career in slow-motion videos, for example jumping off one foot with phenomenal height while mid-sprint.

A true athlete in every sense of the word, and unlike most other pro soccer players, Ronaldo would obsessively practice every move and every skill to the Nth degree. In this way he epitomizes athletic power, combining dynamic muscular ability with extremely precise motor-skills.

The Takeaway

The key point here? The truth about power for performance development, is that athletes need strength combined with speed and agility, far more than raw strength. For example, with a typical pro football player, it's not about giving them an extra 5 or 10kilos of muscle weight to lug 10km around a pitch - it's about increasing their body's physical outputs in ways that can be applied explosively, efficiently, and consistently, to the demands on the field.

As power development coach at Manchester United for 11 years, I met a lot of top strength and conditioning coaches. This wasn't only in the EPL, but also in sports like the NFL while on tours with the club around the USA. What I found was a myth that power comes from primarily from strength, and with that, too much emphasis on building up muscle, rather than a focused understanding on how it actually relates to performance on the field.

It's much better to think of athletes the way engineers think about Formula 1 - power-to-weight ratio efficiency! What I learned over decades of coaching my lads, is that you can increase power a hell of a lot of with the same body mass.

If you're interested to find out more insights from what I learned coaching Cristiano Ronaldo, you can also read my previous blog.

Mastering Performance the Ronaldo Way

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When it comes to human performance, learning and implementing new technologies is huge if you want to stay ahead of the game. Over the last 20 years I’ve built up a core battery of technologies for vision related training, testing and health, along with neurocognitive enhancement. As a passionate vision specialist, part of my role is spearheading the use of emerging technologies for performance and therapy. Here I'll cover why NeuroTracker is a role model neurotechnology worth shouting about!

‘Must-Have’ Technological Tool

I’ve spent 3 years using NeuroTracker for performance, vision enhancement, and rehabilitation. It’s a wonderful technology which quickly became a ‘must-have’ tool as part of our practice. The sports performance role for NeuroTracker was already well-known, and applying it for training NBA, NFL, MLS, and MLB athletes we made great strides. Once these athletes see the difference NeuroTracker is making on the field, they become completely devoted – they want it on the road with them, they want it in their training facility, and we work with those teams to make sure it’s onsite for them. It’s the biggest testimonial for a training tool when your clients say ‘Look, I can’t live without this’, which is great confirmation for us.

Advanced Rehabilitation

What’s less well-known is the application of NeuroTracker for injury recovery. We treat a very wide range of patients suffering from cognitive and physical injuries. With the latest research showing that the brain and body are intimately connected through the central nervous, it's important to have holistic approach to recovery. For example with ACL injuries, which are notoriously difficult to treat, it's been shown that the injuries causes mild cognitive impairments which in turn affect motor-coordination and inhibit physical healing.

NeuroTracker is a nice example of a flexible neurotechnology for this kind of therapy. First of all, it can help maintain an athlete's cognitive systems when they are out of action for a long time and avoid 'game rust'. Secondly we can identify cognitive weaknesses issues, that may actually be related to the cause of injury, and then focus on recovering them.

Lastly NeuroTracker is great for the return-to-play phase of recovery, because we can measure if an athlete has returned to the baseline level they were at pre-injury, as well as use dual-tasks to really test if they can safely execute complex skills under high cognitive load. This video gives an idea of how specifically this kind of performance readiness assessment can be.

Neurological Change & Numerical Data

I presented at a conference on this cognitive measurement perspective, because I think it’s important practitioners realize this can become an exceptional part of their practice. One of the key benefits of NeuroTracker is we’re not just asking the athlete or patient how they feel, we’re truly looking at neurological change correlated by numerical change in data, so we can quantify the intervention and correlate with subjective assessments.

Neurocognitive Recovery

Most importantly we see the beneficial effects. Patients make gains from NeuroTracking by building back neural networks and skillsets that were deficient. It helps a lot that we can adapt the training difficulty to any patients’ condition in short, manageable chunks with constant revaluation.

Assisting recovery neurocognitively really helps with getting patients back to doing things that were once automatic, like navigating busy environments, driving a car, functioning in the work day, or being able to handle the sights and sounds of a ball game on the weekend. Sometimes it happens with dramatic changes, an athlete might say they feel like a light’s gone off because they can suddenly process the world and they can handle things they knew they couldn’t do before – changes that are often reflected in the session data.

It’s rare to find a technology that really works like this, and at a practical level, so I’m hoping to see this neurocognitive approach grow in both its role in therapy and in numbers of practitioners.

If you're interested to learn more about the integration of brain and body for rehabilitation, also check out this blog by another specialist in this domain.

3 Reasons Why the Brain Rules Everything in Sports

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I’d like to thank everyone who attended my webinar, it was great to see so many people from the NeuroTracker community attending. There were a lot of great questions but not enough time to cover them all, or in enough detail. Hopefully this Q&A solves that problem - I hope you find it informative! There were also some questions from personal users of NeuroTracker, look out for a dedicated webinar for this by the NeuroTracker team, coming early summer.

If you didn’t attend the webinar, you can watch the recorded version here.

Q. You talk about NeuroTrackerX, but I also see NeuroTracker mentioned without the "X". Are these 2 different versions?

Yes they are.

The original NeuroTracker commercial software has been around for 10 years. It’s a Windows based platform that can only be run from a single computer. As of April 2021, the original software is no longer supported.

The name NeuroTrackerX refers to a major upgrade from the original software. It utilizes the latest 3D rendering software (Unity), and can be run on Windows and Mac computers (Android coming soon). Any NeuroTrackerX software license can be used on any number of computers. NeuroTrackerX also has a plethora of features that did not exist in the original software, such as advanced data analytics and custom program building. Here is an overview of NeuroTrackerX features.

5 Reasons to be Excited About NeuroTrackerX

Lastly, the name NeuroTracker still represents the company and the patented methodologies, scientific research and validation behind the commercial product. So generally speaking, NeuroTracker is now used to represent the science and technology, and NeuroTrackerX refers to the software platform.

Q. I have the original system at my clinic. Can you advice me on how best transition to NeuroTrackerX?

Yes, once I understand your needs I can advise on the specific applied and business benefits advantages you can expect with the upgrade. The NeuroTracker support team provides great on-boarding once upgraded. It’s a fairly seamless transition, so you can get up and running with it from the get-go. If you haven’t seen it, there is great testimonial interview with Katie Mitchell where she talks about her experience of upgrading her business to NeuroTrackerX.

NeuroTracker Testimonials - Katie Mitchell

Q. How many balls did the ADHD athlete start with?

This is a simple question, but a good one. I was using 3 balls (or targets) with that 14-year-old hockey player. For athletes I believe 4 targets is ideal, as it represents well the attentional distribution challenges they typically face in sports competitions. However, if the athlete’s initial baseline is lower than expected, I will adapt to 3 targets, as was the case with this client due to ADHD. In my experience, healthy athletes from the age of 14 upwards, tend to be best suited to 4 targets from the beginning of their training program.

Q. Maxime, if clients do sessions at-home, do you also do remote consultations with them, or do they still come into your office?

Yes I do still see clients in-center. Most of the time the focus is on assessments at my clinics, followed by a custom protocol from them to work on from home. The training also complements the in-clinic assessments, because I ask them to train under different conditions, for example at different times of the day, combined with remote consultations. This allows me to look into trends related to things like sleep, circadian rhythm, diet and so on, to see how those influence attentional capacities, and how best habits can be implemented.  

Typically I see clients in-center once per week, two weeks, or sometimes monthly. This is a nice balance, because obviously there are still things I can only do with clients in my clinics. However, some of my athletic clients are more restricted by COVID, so I currently don’t see them for months at a time. In these cases, we focus more on Zoom consultations where we review their training data in detail, and also work more on the sports psychology perspective. They still find this really useful, but I expect them to start coming back to my clinics regularly, once they able to.

Q. Did you do any formal pre and post neuropsychological testing with the young client with ADHD?

Yes, I’ve used a lot of different tools over the years and also work with specialists in neuropsychological assessments. With this client I used the IVA-CPT assessment focused on visual and auditory attention. For young clients with attention issues, this gives useful metrics that have been found to be reliable for detecting the benefits of NeuroTracker training. This makes it’s particularly useful for showing parents the progress their child is making.

Q. Can you talk about the best technique to improve score. It is instructions? Or is it learning to track all the balls?

Very interesting question. There are essentially two answers.

The first refers to the NeuroTracker principle called ‘consolidation’. The consolidation phase is a rapid learning response to initial NeuroTracker training. This has been shown in many NeuroTracker studies to occur over the first 15-30 sessions, which will yield much faster improvement than subsequent training due to typical neuroplastic responses.

During this phase, clients simply need to perform the basic task – keeping their gaze towards the center of the screen (i.e. on the visual pivot), and distributing their visual attention across their targets using their peripheral vision. Past this there are really no techniques involved, for example you can’t tell someone to use a particular task-based strategy to improve their scores.

In fact, this is one of the key advantages to NeuroTracker, in that changes in scores have negligible influence from technique or strategy-related effects. Unlike most other forms of cognitive training, changes in brain function are well represented by changes in NeuroTracker scores. An analogy might be how much someone can bench press. If they end up lifting twice as much as they could before, you’re quite confident it’s strength-related, and not down to things like how they hold the bar. So, as long as a client focused on the session and following the basic technique during consolidation, they are likely to get optimal benefits.

The second answer relates to post-consolidation, when there is sufficient learning and increase in attentional capacities to progress to more advanced forms of dual-task training. Unlike performing just NeuroTracker, the rate at which improvement occurs is sensitive to both the individual’s cognitive status, and the complexity of the task added. For example, we can look at a simple dual-task, like standing instead of sitting while performing NeuroTracker. If it’s introduced too early, or with a client who is just not cognitively ready, there will likely be a significant drop in both NeuroTracker scores and session on session improvement rates thereafter.

NeuroTrackerX provides preset protocols that can be assigned to end users relative to different populations. These are based on are scientifically validated learning methodologies, and so they’re definitely a great place to start. Here's a video covering what learning progression through dual-tasks can look like.

That said, I find that this is an area where a coach or clinician’s expertise is also very valuable. Personally speaking, I will make an informed judgement based on each individual’s progress, and what I’ve learned about them, to decide when to introduce dual-tasks, and when to step up the complexity. I’ll then adapt the program accordingly, based around ongoing observations, client feedback, and session’s results. This is where the NeuroTracker data is particularly useful, because if the dual-task complexity is progressed correctly, you will see nice learning curve responses, and vice versa.

Q. Do you use NeuroTracker to monitor recovery?

Absolutely, it’s my go-to tool that I use for all kinds of injury and rehabilitation that I do with clients. As I mentioned in a recent blog, cognitive assessment has been shown to be very relevant for physical injuries with a lot of new research demonstrating the interrelationship between brain and body. There is a NeuroTracker blog by an expert in sports medicine and rehab which explores this topic.

3 Reasons Why the Brain Rules Everything in Sports

The greatest value for me is assessing return-to-play readiness. If for example an athlete returns to training or competition too soon, there are high-risks of reinjury or simply underperforming. On the flip side, if too late, it can hinder their career or they may lose their position on a team.

The key advantage here is that NeuroTracker requires the integration of many high-level cognitive capacities, and it tests individuals at their threshold cognitive capacities. This makes it’s a uniquely valuable reference point for safe assessment of performance readiness. Dual-tasks also allow specific sports abilities, such as motor-skill based drills, to be assessed at attentional threshold to probe for hidden weaknesses. There is a study which actually shows NeuroTracker to be a predictor of injury risk using this methodology.

Q. What is "Open Training"?

So as an Administrator on the NeuroTrackerX platform you can actually build and save your own custom training programs, and then immediately assign to any user. It's a really powerful tool, and as I mentioned in the webinar it's a great time saver, especially when managing a lot of clients. However, it’s also good to allow users to have some freedom to choose their own sessions, according to changes in their personal training goals, or simply for motivational reasons.

The Open Training option allows you to offer three different sessions for a client to choose, and assign this at any points in their training program. Generally, I find this works well when clients have become familiar and comfortable with their training program, so then I assign Open Training more frequently. Or I base it on their feedback during consultations.

Overall, I really like this feature, as do my clients, because it just makes it easy to strike a nice balance between structured programs and giving clients the freedom to choose. It complements remote training very well.

Q. Hi Maxime, if I book a consultation with you, can you share with me how much you charge for remote training, compared to prices in your clinics?

In short it depends on how much remote consultation and follow-up reporting the client wants, versus the number of assessments I do in-clinic, which is quite different for say a professional athlete compared to a clinical patient. But yes, I can go through the different pricing models I use for different client scenarios, as well as make recommendations regarding your clientele, based on my experience with many different types of clients.

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I've been a clinician working in the field of psychology for 13 years now. For almost a decade of that time I've been putting NeuroTracker to use across my practices. Here I'd like to share insights on how that journey was transformed by utilizing this 3D multiple object tracking technology, and how it led me to expand my services from therapy all the way into elite sports. If you are new to NeuroTracker, then here is a short video to watch for an overview.

From Therapy to Neuroplasticity...

Historically my specialty as a clinician was based around Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), where I was working a lot with kids and teenagers. Accordingly, a lot of the focus was on changing behaviors and patterns within the brain across many different psychological disorders. But when I started my PhD I wanted to go beyond traditional psychotherapy, to try and really understand how the brain actually works in order to optimize the services I offer.

I was particularly interested in neuroplasticity, and around that time discovered NeuroTracker. Just from the science that was available I saw its potential as a tool for measuring and stimulating functional plasticity. The opportunity to put this neurotechnology to use actually influenced the direction of my business from that point.

In fact it’s a big part of the reason why I founded Synapse Plus. , a center dedicated to improving human performance and wellness. I chose the name because synapses sit in the nerve firing space between the dendrite and axon - where all the action happens in the brain! I was already using Neurofeedback, but it was actually the opportunity to get on board with NeuroTracker that really allowed me to transition my business to become dedicated to cognitive enhancement.

...to Athletics

With this new focus on cognitive performance I started getting demand to work increasingly with athletes. This was not as big of a jump as I’d expected, because I was surprised to learn that a lot of athletes have issues with things like ADHD, OCD, anxiety and phobias. Then there’s the cognitive rehabilitation side of sports injury – the field of sports medicine has shown that it can be as important to rehabilitate the brain, as the physical injury itself. Lastly, even with athletes, we don’t only work with NeuroTracker for sports performance, but also for benefits in their daily life and overall wellness.

This led me to want to become a specialist in sports psychology, and for that reason I completed studies in both Canada and the US. From putting what I'd learned academically into clinical practice, alongside harnessing the latest neurotechnologies, I feel I'm now in a strong position to offer really comprehensive services. Its resulted in services with numerous high-profile clients, including NHL and NFL teams, as well as professional teams in Europe. It's opened-up a lot of opportunities I wouldn't have imagined were possible.

So a big takeaway with NeuroTracker is that I found a natural crossover between therapy and performance enhancement, which is why I apply it across such a diverse range clients. It’s a great testimonial for a product when it actually shapes your career and drives the evolution of your business in completely new directions.

A Window into the Brain

One of the things I found is that when I use NeuroTracker with clients it's much easier to interact with them in a meaningful way, especially with children. It just open ups a lot of their interest from their perspective about how their minds actually function. Likewise, over the years I’ve found that NeuroTracker is a good predictor of the way people respond in real life situations. For example if they get frustrated or annoyed at missing three trials in a row during a session, then that's how they are prone to react more generally. This makes it a nice way to gain insights on how people respond to challenges they face in daily life, and more importantly, when mindset changes are happening over time.

I use a lot of neuropsychology tools which test various components of cognition, such as attention, working memory, and so on, which is great when you want to isolate certain brain functions. However, the flip side is that we don't get the picture of how they actually integrate in a functional way. In contrast, something I really like about NeuroTracker is that it activates a lot of different functions across the brain, requiring them to be integrated at a high level. It's quite unique in this respect, and as a clinical psychologist, it really helps when you can put all the pieces together to see how a patient is progressing overall. It also makes a big difference when you want to know how well someone is functioning when it comes to real world demands.

A Tool for Performance Readiness

It’s especially important when it comes to high-performance sports, for example a hockey player on the ice has to process a massive amount of information they have to constantly coming in. They have to analyze this, evaluate options, decide how to react, and then execute the right action. And this happens on a continual basis. The bonus is that now I can not just test how well an athlete can put these combined systems to use, but I can also train them to be integrated under the pressure of NeuroTracker’s speed thresholds.

This is invaluable for assessing performing readiness on the field in a controlled setting. It's actually one of the biggest reasons I found the technology to be so useful in my practice. It’s just so useful to be able to bring all these cognitive elements together to test and train them for either a competitive edge, or to improve wellness and quality of life.

In a follow-up to this blog, I’ll dig deeper into where NeuroTracker benefits can go with advanced forms of training like dual-tasks, and explain why the 3D component is so important. In the meantime, if you’re interested to learn more on how to put NeuroTracker into practice, then check out my 3-part blog guide for trainers.

Tips for NeuroTracker Trainers - the First Session

Tips for NeuroTracker Trainers - Managing Sessions

Tips for NeuroTracker Trainers - Advanced Programs

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The neurocognitive sports industry is still small, but growing fast. It’s growing for good reason, because neurocognitive training will revolutionize the ways in which coaches and athletes actualize their peak performance potential. Here I’ll cover the rising demands for this type of neural conditioning for sports, and why it's been so transformative in my own coaching practices with UFC fighters.

From Neuroscience to Fight Sports

Coming out of a brain-based leadership background with a post-doctorate neurobiology, I became a neurocognitive trainer for fight sports four years ago. Although I was a boxer in the US Marine Corps, I didn’t actually choose this path, it instead chose me. It was a pro-fighter preparing for a championship who reached out because of my neuroscience background, asking if I could work with him to enhance his mental performance.

From there I founded Neuro Peak Performance, in which we are totally dedicated to neurocognitive training for athletic performance. Since then, we’ve been blessed to work with some of the world’s best UFC fighters.

I think this speaks volumes about the professional sports industry in general, because today the brain is considered the most untapped resource in high-performance sports. However mental performance is kind of seen as an intangible phenomenon, where coaches and athletes generally don’t yet have the know-how or access to the neurotechnologies to really tap into this resource.

Sports Demands on the Athletic Brain

The human brain is really put to the test when it comes to sports. As an example, inside the octagon it’s well known that a fighter has to rely on plethora of key mental skills. These include critical abilities like perception span, target acquisition, go/no-go decision-making, impulse control and attack avoidance. In fight sports, these typically have to be put to use on millisecond time scales. Literally just one blink at the wrong time, and you got hit! So in fight sports, it’s not enough to just condition them, these skills need to be honed to a level high enough that automaticity is achieved – simply because there is often not enough time to consciously respond.

Then there are other factors like mental stamina, which is impacted directly by physical fatigue – a challenge most athletes are very familiar with. In combat sports in particular, there is also the very real fear of getting hurt, which threatens a fighter’s ability to perform. This is because when a fighter takes a big hit, their amygdala fires up, triggering primitive instincts to avoid getting hurt more. So neurocognitive combat skills don’t just need to be trained up, they need to be conditioned to the extent that they become hard-wired.

Even physical performance is driven neurobiologically, for instance virtually all motor-skills are commanded directly by the brain. Obviously there are many more factors involved, but essentially these neurovisual and cognitive abilities are all trainable. The modern-day challenge is that tried and tested methods to condition them are still unfamiliar to most performance specialists.

The Missing Link

Physical training like strength and conditioning, endurance and cardio have all proven to be important factors in conditioning athletic performance. However, what’s left out most of the time is how the brain handles the vast quantities of internal and external sensory information processing involved in all aspects of sports performance. This means that athletes are typically left to develop their mental capacities simply through exposure to competition experience, which runs counter to practically all other sports science-based training methodologies.

Of course, you could know all the neuroscience research there is to know, but without the right training tools it’s very difficult to put that knowledge to practical use. This is where neurotechnologies come in, which have only started to really develop over the last decade. That said, right now there are a lot of great tools already established on the market. From low-level electrical brain stimulation to EEG Neurofeedback, we try use make sure we combine the best of them in every training session we do at Neuro Peak Performance.

NeuroTracker – a Role Model Neurotechnology

From my own research and experience, I can say that there is one neurotechnology that really stands out. NeuroTracker is a 3D multiple object tracking software, and it has been the core function of all the training we do.

There are a number of good reasons for this.

‍Specificity Advantage - NeuroTracker is a beautiful piece of software in that there so many ways to use the programs. This allows us to take a unique approach in tailoring mental conditioning to each individual athlete we coach. Our fighters love that.

Neurocognitive Metrics – training on this technology requires integration of a whole range of high-level cognitive abilities that are directly relevant to real-world performance. This gives us a great measure of an athlete's integrated mental capacities, which we can compare against physical abilities. Then with the specificity of the software, we can assess things like subcomponents of attention. With detailed metrics on certain cognitive strengths and weakness, we can evolve an athlete’s training protocols accordingly.

Threshold Cognitive Loads – NeuroTracker’s adaptive algorithms excel at pushing an athlete to their mental limits. Firstly, this allows us to rapidly develop the neural circuitries that are critical to competition performance. Secondly, we can get fighters accustomed to the intense mental demands they face in fights, so that they are resilient under pressure, even if they don’t have the experience of a veteran fighter.

Dual-Task Methodologies – NeuroTracker works superbly when additional training tasks are integrated into sessions. For example, performing combat sequence drills at the same time as NeuroTracking, or with other neurotechnologies such as reactive decision-based training with light sensor motion detectors. This is a another reason why we can adapt the training very precisely to any athlete’s performance needs.

Neurocognitive Stamina – as research has shown with elite rugby players, this form of training can dramatically reduce loss of situational awareness that typically occurs in highly fatigued states. As the outcomes of sports competitions are generally won or lost when athletes hit the limits of their mental stamina, this type of conditioning offers a great competitive edge.

Wellness Intervention – when you work closely with fighters, you not only learn tremendous respect for their athletic prowess, but you also become aware of the unfortunate toll the sport can take on their mental health. With this method we can boost neuroplasticity and the brain’s ability to repair itself on a regular basis, as well as use NeuroTracker scores to monitor a fighter’s ongoing cognitive status.

For these reasons we implement NeuroTracker not only in every session, but also at frequent points throughout each session. This allows us to stimulate neural activation and the growth of a true performance mindset. It’s also an extremely flexible training tool. It would be great to see more neurotechnologies of this exemplary standard coming onto the market.

The Future is Now

As I said at the beginning, the sports neurocognitive industry is growing quickly, yet still relatively small. That said, the future of cognitive training is already here with the neurotechnologies now available. I see widespread adoption simply as a matter of time. Just like a strength and conditioning coach is essential for any professional athlete today, in the next five years, having a sports neurocognitive coach will likewise become standard for elite athletes. Ultimately the brain controls everything we do, and so conditioning it is essential for a competitive advantage.

If you'd like to learn more, here is a recent interview I did with the NeuroTracker team.

Lastly, if you're interested in knowing more about the cognitive demands involved in elite sports, here is an earlier Experts Corner blog I wrote.

Harnessing the Athletic Brain

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For most ordinary folks, completing a marathon is about as extreme as things go when it comes to feats of stamina. Occasionally though, there are some athletes who take the idea of endurance to a whole new level. Here are 7 notable feats of stamina that redefine the limits of human potential.

The Longest Brawl in Boxing

Today we associate the high-profile sport of boxing with huge purses and judges who qualify every single punch. However, boxing’s history as a sport grew out of bare-knuckle fighting, where the only way to determine a winner was literally by the last man standing. Interestingly, there were rarely any deaths in boxing until gloves came in, as punching a bony skull with knuckles tends to end up damaging the puncher's hands more than the opponent. With more body hits, fights could go on much longer, providing a true test of physical and mental stamina.

The ultimate Battle Royale of boxing took place on April 6, 1893. Showing severe tenacity to never give up, boxers Andy Bowen and Jack Burke duked it out for unthinkable 111 rounds. The two pugilists pummeled each other for a total of seven hours and 19 minutes, at which point the referee finally called a stop to the fight and ruled it a draw. The epic battle certainly took it’s toll on the fighters, with Burke having to retire after breaking all the bones in both of his hands. 

The Longest Single Breath Underwater

In an incredible demonstration, David Blaine set a Guinness World Record underwater live on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The illusionist held a single breath continuously for a whopping 17 minutes and four seconds. Unfortunately for him, this inspired German veteran diver Tom Sietas, one of the world’s leading free drivers, to top the feat with an achievement of 17minutes and 19 seconds. Sietas has an incredibly high-lung capacity, also holding world records deep diving without the aid of oxygen tanks.

Still, as a street magician with no diving or athletic background, Blaine’s record setting baffles the imagination. Even without superior physical fitness, he demonstrated that mind over matter can push the body beyond what was even thought possible. 

2 Month Swim Across the Atlantic

Benoit Lecomte is one of the greatest long-distance swimmers to have ever lived. The Frenchman’s most impressive feat was being the first person to conquer the Atlantic Ocean in 1998.  Using doggy paddle without aids, he swam 8 hours per day for 73 days. This took him from Massachusetts to Brittany, covering a staggering 3,716 miles of treacherous waters, including relying on a tail boat to ward-off sharks.  

The Ultimate Non-Stop Run

Dean Karnazes is considered the best endurance runner ever, with a prolific range of accomplishments from a young age. His phenomenal abilities are partly attributed to an unusual lack of lactic acid buildup in his system while fatigued.

Probably his greatest run to date took place on October 18, 2005, when the Californian pulled off a nonstop 350-mile run around the San Francisco Bay area. This involved an incredible 80 hours on-the-go at a relentless pace.  

Highest Climbs Without Oxygen

Italian alpinist Karl Unterkircher was both a highly skilled climber a truly elite athlete. In 2004 he accomplished for the first time the summiting of both Mount Everest and K2, without the aid of oxygen. These are not only the two highest peaks on Earth, but are also known to be dangerous, claiming numerous climbers lives on a yearly basis.

Unterkircher’s oxygen levels near the peaks was so low, that at times he almost passed out just from the effort of maintaining his breathing. This is known as the ‘death zone’, where the body literally starts consuming it’s own cells because the air is too thin to actually support respiration. 

The Most Brutal 2 Days of Cycling

The UK has a famous bike ride called Land’s End to John o’Groats, which traverses the whole length of Great Britain from top to bottom. For most serious cyclists, this 874 miles course takes two weeks of long daily rides to complete. However, in 2001, cyclist Gethin Butler shocked the cycling world by completing the whole journey in just two days. The extreme cyclist pedaled at a blistering pace for 22 hours each day. In similar fashion, Butler has also cycled 1,000 miles in two days, seven hours and 53 minutes. 

The Marathon Tennis Match

The most recent feat on this list took place in the 2010 Wimbledon championships. Instead of the typical 3-4 hours to complete a tournament tennis match, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played a whopping 11 hours. This was by far the longest ever contest in professional tennis history, with a total of 183 games completed over three days.

In an incredibly competitive and closely fought match, this included a gargantuan single set with countless tie-breakers, lasting over eight hours. 28 ball boys were needed, and the players had to persevere through brutal cases of tennis elbow. In the end Isner narrowly took the match.

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If you’re a trainer, performance coach, therapist or clinician interested in the fast-growing phenomenon of cognitive training, then we’re excited to share some of the advanced features that our new NeuroTrackerX platform has to offer. Here we’ll highlight 5 key reasons why our evolution of the NeuroTracker software is ready to take your practice to the next level.

1. The Perfect Solution for In-Center and Remote Training

The first thing to cover is that NeuroTrackerX includes two versions of the software, one for end users, and one for administrators and trainers. The administrator platform has access to everything end users get, plus a slew of slick tools designed to easily manage any numbers of users for both in-center and remote training.

End Users – super simple access to a personal training experience. Includes an interactive dashboard with access to all training data, along with support and options to customize their training options or goals.

Administrators – an advanced software platform with everything needed to manage and monitor users, build custom programs, as well as run sessions hands-on with end users. Also allows multiple trainer accounts within an organization to be created, and then assigned to manage specific groups of users.

Setting Up End Users from the Get-go

A key feature is how fast and easy it is to setup new end user accounts. With just a name and email address, you can setup and assign an end user account in seconds.

This immediately sends an email to the recipient with their login details and takes them through the few short steps to setup the software and start training. NeuroTrackerX has tutorials plus help and support built-in, guiding new users through their first training program.

This is ideal for effortlessly getting new clients up and running from the get-go, regardless of where they are. For those looking to quickly set-up large groups, the process can also be done in one step for any number of users, through bulk invites.

An alternative option is to create end user accounts that are ready to go on-the-spot. This doesn’t require an email address, and works well for in-center training. Simply choose a login ID, select a training program, and the account is ready to use immediately. This is great for setting-up new users for in-center training off-the-bat, and it allows personal details to be kept anonymous for medical purposes.

Flexible Hardware Options

One of the nice things about both the NeuroTrackerX administrator and end user accounts, is that they can be accessed from any online PC or Mac computer. Accounts can basically be run anytime, anywhere, with data synced seamlessly, and across these different hardware setups.

Anaglyph 3D – our custom-engineered red-blue filter glasses have been specially optimized with the latest developments in software rendering. This brings true stereoscopic 3D to normal 2D displays. Effectively the glasses allow anyone to train on any computer they have access to. There is also a tool included for end users to tweak their anaglyph 3D settings, to optimize the viewing experience to specific displays or ambient lighting conditions.

Active 3D – this is the standard choice for clients who like to have an advanced setup in their training center. It includes 3D projectors and large 3DTVs, which suit advanced forms of training and assessments, such as dual-tasks.

VR HMD – clients wanting a focused and immersive NeuroTracker experience that’s also mobile can opt for a Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display. This is perfect for controlled assessments on the road, such as baselining a sports team. We are currently expanding the number of HMDs that NeuroTrackerX can be used with.

To give an example of the flexibility here, an end user signed-up with a trainer might perform 10 sessions a week on their laptop at home, using anaglyph 3D. Then in addition, perform in-center dual-task assessments once a week on a 3D projector in a dedicated training room, with their trainer.

Of course there’s lots more to cover, but in a nutshell NeuroTrackerX has been built from the ground-up to provide everything needed for a no-fuss telehealth solution. This video provides a short introduction to the administrator version of the platform.

2. Custom-Program Building

The administrator platform comes with a broad variety training programs to cater for trainers with a diversity of needs. In just a few clicks these can be added in any combination of blocks for any user. Once assigned, end users can view what’s been lined-up in their programs on their dashboard, as well as see their progress through each program. Programs can be edited, skipped or updated in real-time.

That said, one of the things we’ve learned from years of feedback, is that expert trainers love to create their own specialized twist on their NeuroTracker training or assessment protocols. For this reason, NeuroTrackerX trainers who complete the NeuroTracker Academy can get access to an advanced program builder. This allows configuration and saving of specific or unique session builds, which can then be added into new custom-programs. Once these new sessions and programs are saved, they can be immediately assigned to end user, and shared with other trainers within the organization.

3. Advanced Data Analysis

The administrator platform includes a dedicated section to help navigate and interpret training data of end user within your organization. Three interactive chart tools cover training progression data, baseline analysis, and relative improvement evaluations. These tools make it easy to spot trends, outlier behaviors, and predict how users will perform in order to adapt training programs accordingly.

A nice feature is that end user training data can be compared to norms within an organization, allowing you to select certain users and instantly compare them to their peers. Additionally, user data from our global database is also included for broader normative references. There’s lots to explore, but the takeaway is that the software does all the heavy lifting for getting a deeper and broader understanding of macroscopic training data.

4. End User Dashboard Access

It’s doesn’t sound particularly special, but a surprisingly helpful feature for trainers is the ability to see any of their end users' personal dashboards in a couple of clicks. The interactive dashboard provides much more specific information on training progression for focused analysis or monitoring.

The other utility is that logging into the administrator platform provides an intuitive way to launch a session for any user within the organization. It’s essentially the same as if the user logged in personally, but without needing to actually login. So, if a user in-center forgets their username or password – no worries! They also get exactly the same software experience as if they were training at home.

5.       Personal Training Goals

To support making it easy for trainers to manage their users remotely, we’ve included a couple of nice features in NeuroTrackerX that can provide end users some empowerment over their training preferences.

Personal Training Goals

To help guide end users through their programs, NeuroTrackerX includes an option to set personal training goals. The user simply selects the weekly frequency at which they would like to aim for, and the software provides feedback each session on their progression. This makes it simple for people training at home to know where they are at each week, according to what they would like to achieve.

Open Training

Although it’s great for trainers to be able to assign custom-programs for end users, it’s also nice for end users to have some freedom in choosing their own sessions. This is catered for by an Open Training option that trainers can include in any programs.

It's a straight-forward case of assigning the Open Training option to any individual sessions in a program. When the user reaches this session, they are prompted with the choice of two alternative types of sessions. For example, they may have 3 Core sessions lined-up, but on the third Core session, if Open Training has been set, they can opt to perform a Selective or Optic Flow training session.

You can view intros of other types of sessions available in NeuroTrackerX here.

The advantage this brings is that trainers can decide how much freedom they want to give to users in guiding their own training over time. Typically, trainers like to guide session choices more closely in the earlier phases of training, but then as a user gets more familiar with different types of sessions or dual-tasks, they assign more points of Open Training. This helps to motivate end users throughout their path to improvement.

We hope you’re excited as we are about the ways NeuroTrackerX can boost the reach of any trainer providing cognitive training to their clients. There's much more to learn, so look out for a series of upcoming free webinars where NeuroTrackerX experts will cover how to get the most out of this neurotechnology for business practices. If you’d like to be updated when these are coming, then just reach out to us here.

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It’s been known for a long time that changing seasons affect our circadian rhythm and sleep patterns. However, most people also intuitively think of summer moods compared to winter moods as being markedly different. Now new research from Finland has shown for the first time how your brain literally changes its neurobiology in response to variations in daylight hours throughout the year.

The Mystery Behind the Winter Blues

A group of more than 20 Finnish neuroscientists led by Lihua Sun at the Turku PET Centre and the University of Turku sought to uncover why the seasons affect our mindsets and sociability so significantly. In Scandinavian countries Seasonal Affective Disorder, aptly known as the abbreviation SAD, is a major problem for many people through long Winter months of very short days, which typically provide 16 hours less sunlight than summer days.

For example, 8% of Swedes develop some form of depressive disorder due to the Winter blues.  This is in stark contrast to summer days when it is known that negative emotions are much easier to subdue. However, changes in circadian rhythm don’t account for such a prevalence of reduced wellbeing, for instance jet lag is not associated with such effects even for frequent flyers such as airplane staff. This group hypothesized that there may be neurobiological changes occurring from our relationship with the sun, then took to the lab to investigate the theory.

What Was Studied

The researchers focused on changes in opioid receptors in the brain, which have a well-established role in regulating our moods and emotions. Specifically, they looked to see if the number of these receptors changed in response to number daylight hours throughout a year.

They took regular measurements using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) brain scans combined with a radioactive tracer that binds to the brain's opioid receptors. 204 volunteers participated in the study.

Interestingly, they studied both humans and rats, using rats as a kind of litmus test to isolate daylight effects from other potential human influences on mental state, such as variations in cultural or societal trends.

What Was Found

In both humans and rats, days of the year with less sunlight were associated with a significant reduction in the quantity of opioid receptors. However, during the Finnish midsummer when there is almost no night time, the quantity also dropped off. The sweet spot for the brain was found to be across days with around 13-17 hours of sunlight, when the receptors were at their most abundant.

A key finding was that these opioid related changes in were most prevalent in brain regions that deal with how we actually feel and process emotional states. Lihua Sun summarized the findings,

"In the study, we observed that the number of opioid receptors was dependent on the time of the year the brain was imaged. The changes were most prominent in the brain regions that control emotions and sociability. The changes in the opioid receptors caused by the variation in the amount of daylight could be an important factor in seasonal affective disorder."

Take Aways

It’s an eye-opening insight that sunshine doesn’t only change how we look on the outside, but actually has a transformative effect on our brain from a physiological perspective - literally shaping the boundaries of what we can actually feel. It’s unknown why humans and likely most mammals have evolved to be neurologically sensitive to sunlight exposure, but these findings do show that we are intimately connected to our nearest star.

The research sheds fresh light on alternative treatments for SAD that could focus on the neurobiology of the brain, rather than behavioral or environmental factors. It also supports the notion of vacationing to sunnier climates during the winter months, to help rejuvenate both the body and mind. The lack of access to winter holidays due to COVID-19 lockdowns may have exacerbated the struggles that many people have had with anxiety and depression, or at least underline the wellness importance of making it through to 2021 spring and summer.

If you're looking for ways to improve your health and wellness, also check out this blog.

7 Blogs to Boost Your Wellness

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My name is Erin McLeod and I’ve been a professional soccer goalkeeper since 2001, having competed in four FIFA World Cups. One of my proudest moments was being accepted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame after achieving a bronze medal in the London 2012 games – something I could only have dreamed of as a kid. A hugely transformative change in my career was when I discovered how the practice of mindfulness could unlock my inner potential, taking me on an incredible journey inside and outside of the game. Now one of my life’s goals is to help others discover how practicing mindfulness can be so beneficial, which I’d like to share with you here.

The Challenges of Goalkeeping

As a goalkeeper you’re constantly absorbing and processing a lot of information on the field. You have to determine what's important versus what's not. You also have to continually make good decisions under pressure while not being over-stimulated, so it’s really important to pay attention to the smallest details while staying present and focused as much as possible. This is especially true under high stress conditions, when you know it’s all on the line and your whole team is depending on you.

I’ve been a perfectionist my whole career, but with that comes the fear of making mistakes, which can be a huge distraction in game-winning and game-losing situations. I think of it as having a limited amount of precious attention and focus available. How you direct your attention is crucial, because you need as close as you can get to 100% focus on each moment of a game to perform your best.

Research suggests that most people direct only 10% of thought processes into the present moment, so when it comes to personal growth, you can only imagine how much more we can learn when we become more efficient with our minds. For me, this is where practicing mindfulness came in, and it had a huge impact in my personal career.

Focusing on the Mental Side of the Game

I started really focusing on the mental side of the game leading up to the 2012 Olympics. This was when an amazing sports psychologist called Dr. Ceri Evans, who works with the New Zealand All Blacks, joined the Canadian National Women’s Soccer as the mental performance coach. With a central focus on mindfulness, his motto was ''presence comes from being present in the moment''.

I had always been a nervous goalkeeper. Dr. Evans’ mentoring helped me realize that most of my performance anxiety stemmed from being worried about making future mistakes, or dwelling on past ones.  The work we did was subtle at first, in moments of stress he told me to bring my awareness to my breath, not change anything, but just to notice it.  Mostly it was about bringing awareness to things I was doing in the moment.

He asked me to notice the tone of my voice, and be aware that my self-communication of when danger was coming, or when things were calm, were the same.  I started noticing how many words I was using that were fluff, non-purposeful or misdirected. He also encouraged expanding my vision as much as possible. I can say that the techniques really started to change my state of being and I saw how that translated to better performance on the pitch.

The Mind Training Approach

Most people think of mindfulness as practicing a certain way of thinking, but it can also be thought of as a training process, leveraging our brain’s neuroplasticity to tap into our underlying learning potential.

I started training with NeuroTracker not too long after the Olympics, and have been using it almost religiously ever since.  The timing couldn’t have been better because as I was already well into my mindfulness journey, trying to build on my present-moment focus. Off-the-bat I found that with NeuroTracker that I couldn’t let my mind go anywhere, because the feedback would show my results dropping immediately. This helped constantly reinforce in my mind just how crucial being aware of actually being aware, really is.

As a person who believes in constantly striving to simply be the best that you can be, one thing I really responded to was how NeuroTracker constantly challenges you to compete against yourself. The continual feedback at every step of training and the objective results show you where you are at, compared to where you want to be. For me this became an art of practicing getting in the zone and moving towards staying in the zone all day long. I think it's a great way to just continually challenge yourself in way that it's going to help develop your brain and your overall wellness.

I also discovered how pairing a biofeedback technology called Heart Math worked wonderfully for me with NeuroTracker. This basically measures subtle changes in rhythm and heart rate variability, which provides a kind of neurofeedback of what it is going on in your brain, because the science shows that heart and mind are closely coupled. It works great for practicing meditation, but then I learned that my NeuroTracker scores were better when I'd done meditation with Heart Math beforehand.

On the one hand, the scores showed me the real benefits I was getting from that, and on the other hand I was getting more out of my NeuroTracker sessions. I’ve been doing it the same way every single day ever since and really notice the difference it’s had on my game. In high pressure situations I feel much more aware in the heat of the action. It’s like I’ve developed ‘spidey senses’ for whatever is going on around me so I'm able to pick up the all the important cues that I need to read the game.

The Mindful Project Journey

I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Rachel Lindvall when I was competing in the Europe. As a veteran women’s soccer coach and an expert in mindfulness, we immediately connected. Her research opened my eyes to just how powerful the science and research is that backs these subtle mindfulness practices.  What blew me away most was when I read the studies revealing how your relationship with stress directly impacts your body on a physiological level, and how your mind is literally capable reversing the effects with the right focus.

I also remember showing Dr. Lindvall the NeuroTracker program and Heart Math in her hotel room in France when her and her husband were visiting me to see a game.  From there we decided to setup The Mindful Project, with the goal of bringing both the science-based methods and technologies of mindfulness training to people.  We focused on athletes and students (often the same) because of what we knew about the challenges of performance anxiety and fixed mindsets that these people face.

Studies show that we start learning to become afraid of making mistakes as early as three and a half years old, so as well as our high-performance programs we have a dedicated youth program. With adults we focus a lot on unlearning in order to get into the space of a growth mindset, but with youngsters we can focus more on developing an identity of self-worth from the outset, which we believe is incredibly important as human beings.

The Mindfulness Journey

For a long time in my life and soccer career, I took making mistakes personally and was extremely hard on myself, which shows slowed down my development. Anxiety also worked against me, rather than for me. The impact mindfulness had on my game was tremendous. I realized that being self-compassionate not only feels good, it helps you learn faster. I also became much more aware of my relationship with myself (my self-talk) and discovered how to open my fixed mindset.  All I had to do was believe that nerves were simply helping me prepare for a game to the best of my abilities, priming my brain and muscle functions to be optimal.  This started a long journey, that I’m still on, exploring mindfulness in high performance.

The path taken with Dr. Lindvall’s has been incredible so far. With research dedicated to the impact of mindfulness on athletes, and my own life experiences, one of the ultimate goals with our project is joy.  So often in my career I have been the one getting in my own way.  As I get older and work harder on my mindfulness practice, the fulfillment I experience because I am in the moment more often in the game, and in life, is something I hope all of our clients can experience.

Now I’m as passionate about mindfulness as I am about soccer. What has been so powerful on my own journey and with so many of our clients and our NCAA athletes, is that we are realizing so many of the negative thought patterns or mental habits we have created that work against us, can be unlearned.  Our brains are incredibly malleable, and I now know that it’s not a matter of what we can learn, but how we can learn.

If you want to find out more about the research on the benefits of mindfulness for managing stress and anxiety, then check out Dr. Lindvall's Experts Corner blog.

Mindfulness – Modern Medicine for Stress

Lastly, here is an interview I did with the NeuroTracker team on my experiences training mental performance.

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As a sports medicine researcher, clinical practitioner and performance specialist, I’ve spent the last ten years trying to understand and push the boundaries of how we can optimally condition and rehabilitate athletes. An overarching conclusion I’ve reached is that neuroscience and the modern rise of sports neurotechnologies have a great deal to offer, and have already yielded highly valid ways to take sports to the next level. Yet the main challenge to their success is still a lack of understanding that the brain rules everything in the body. Here I’ll cover three cornerstone statements and explain why this simple paradigm has so much to offer the sports world, and then cover where this is leading.

1. The Brain Rules Everything in the Body

It sounds like a bold statement, but the fact that the brain and central nervous system rules everything in the body, is actually an elementary conclusion. The immune system, the autonomic system, the endocrine system, sensory systems including perceptual processes like proprioception, thermoception and nociception, are all guided by our biological supercomputer network of neurons. In the brain alone the are between 75-125 billion neurons, which then extends it’s reach throughout every part of the body across 90,000 miles of nerves, also composed of neurons.

The central and peripheral nervous systems are actually more like an extension of the brain, somewhat like the roots of a tree. In some cases, these connections are very direct, for example single neurons form nerve bundles from the brain right down to the feet for the purposes of fast reactions. So when you bend down to touch your toes, the pain that you feel is literally individual neurons that span the whole length of your body being stretched.  Even while you sleep, your brain is working hard to regulate your digestive system.

As neurons are on/off processing units just like transistors, the human body essentially functions like a computer, constantly processing biological information. Without these neuronal computations, everything stops. The key takeaway is that to properly understand physical processes, we have to understand them from a systems perspective where everything, to some degree or another, is regulated by the brain and it’s innervating nervous systems.

2. The Brain is a Critical Factor in Predicting Injury Risk

Traditionally, physical injuries have been assumed to be mostly physical in cause, for example due to particular muscular or joint weaknesses that are unable to withstand the demands of certain exercises. As such, rehabilitation has almost exclusively been focused on building up these physical systems to better withstand such demands. Of course this approach is valid, however it is not the whole picture.

Research conducted by Professor Faubert investigated whether ACL injuries, which are typically self-inflicted due to impairments in motor-coordination, could be influenced by the cognitive state of athletes. To do this, athletes were tested on jump sequences, and also on the same jump sequences while performing NeuroTracker to simulate the cognitive loads of actual sports performance. Force plate and motion tracking analysis revealed that,

‘‘…hip and knee kinematics changed significantly while jumping with NeuroTracker, compared to just jumping alone.  Specifically, the largest effect was a change in knee abduction angle, resulting in increased strain on the ACL with 60% of the participants. Our findings suggest that some people are more susceptible to these types of injuries than others. It also suggests that using NeuroTracker while performing certain jumping drills may be a valid method to identify these people.’’

Essentially this study discovered that when the brain has low cognitive load, there was no ACL risk for the participants, but when mental demands related to competition are added, many were susceptible to injury. This isolates brain functions as a specific cause of injury risk.

The study provides a nice example of how a tool like NeuroTracker can be used both as simulation of in-game cognitive loads, and also as a method to safely provide objective metrics that can identify individuals at risk of physical injuries. The adoption of neuroscience in sports science is still relatively young, so I believe this kind of research is just the tip of the iceberg.

In fact, this perspective is driving my PhD research, where I am investigating how the repeated effects of long-term micro-concussions of ball heading in soccer, can actually be a direct cause of ACL injuries.

Professor Faubert also hypothesized that NeuroTracker training could be used to mitigate or overcome the cognitive weaknesses related to the injury risk. This is an area of sports medicine that have been devoting my own clinical rehabilitation practices to.

3. The Brain is a Critical Factor in Physical Rehabilitation

The latest research in ACL injuries shows a highly sensitive interrelationship between the brain and the body. As we’ve discussed, the brain can be the root cause of an ACL injury. However, once sustained, ACL injuries have been found to cause specific impairments in brain functions. Furthermore, these effects are now known to trigger impairments in movement coordination that have been found to prolong the effects of injury and hamper rehabilitation.

This means that if you treat an ACL injury with a traditional approach focused purely on physical treatment, rehabilitation times can be extremely long. It perhaps explains why sports medicine professionals have claimed that NBA athletes require a staggering 16-18 months of rehabilitation to reach full recovery.

For ACL and other types of injuries I believe that it is critical for rehabilitation practices to incorporate what I call the neuroplasticity phase of treatment. Alongside physical rehabilitation, we need to identify cognitive weaknesses and/or impairments, and treat those directly. I have delivered multiple presentations on this to educate various groups of sports medicine professionals.

I also practice what I preach. Alongside NeuroTracker I use a variety of neurotechnologies to actively build up athletes’ cognitive systems, so they can not only recover to peak performance status, but from a causative perspective, also reduce the risks of reinjury – a huge problem in modern professional sports.

Rehabilitation and Performance Conditioning Go Hand-In-Hand

It’s not a coincidence that the same neurotechnologies I use for rehabilitation, I also use for enhancing elite sports performance. To give an example of how they go hand-in-hand, I use NeuroTracker performance training protocols to consolidate each athlete’s high-level cognitive abilities within range of their peak zone.

From the research and my own findings, I’m convinced this enhances their situational awareness, decision-making skills and a number of other factors that are central to performance success on the field. Indeed, I am currently in the process of publishing a large soccer study in Greece, where we trained European Champions League players on NeuroTracker once per week over a whole season, then measured their competition performance via detailed statistical analysis. The far transfer results were very positive and I am excited about sharing this research.  

The beauty of this approach is that I also get reliable measures of athlete’s personal peak performance states, as well as their neuroplasticity levels measured by the NeuroTracker learning rate. This means that if an athlete suffers an injury, I can track their recovery and much more accurately determine when they are ready to return to certain phases of training. And most importantly when they are ready for the demands of competition.

This is invaluable in today’s culture of ultra-competitive sports, because if you keep a player out of action too long, both their career and their team’s performance is compromised. Yet on the flip-side, putting them back on the field too early means they perform poorly, or much worse, they get seriously reinjured, sometimes ending their career.

One of the big advantages of the NeuroTracker, is that it is perfect for dual-task neurophysical training and assessment. By integrating the demands of threshold cognitive loads with complex motor-skill demands, I can robustly test and train an athlete’s integrated performance systems. This provides higher ecological training and assessment validity, and it also allows me to identify compromised systems and target them for rehabilitation purposes, or to overcome specific performance weaknesses in a player’s overall skillset.

This ability to condition peak performance abilities, while collecting objective metrics to directly guide rehabilitation protocols is a perfect partnership.

The Future of Sports Performance and Rehabilitation

As I mentioned at the outset, the brain and central nervous system rule everything in the body. From a neuroscience perspective this is an elementary conclusion, yet when it comes to sports science and sports medicine it’s a paradigm that’s only slowly being understood. That said, the synthesis of these fields is happening quickly, with research growing exponentially.

In the next five to ten years, I can see such research driving major changes in how sports coaches and clinicians condition their athletes. The results will be transformative, particularly for understanding the true nature of sports injuries, along with the optimal methods to treat them. In this video I talk about how NeuroTracker has played a pivotal role in my sports performance and rehabilitation practices, as well as my PhD research.

Recently we featured quotes from a variety of coaches, clinicians, military leaders and all-round experts in the cognitive dimensions of human performance and wellness. Now it's time to share the voices of great athletes from a plethora of different sports and countries. Many are at the top of their game, and the NeuroTracker team is proud to share the thoughts they have kindly volunteered about how our neurotechnology has had a positive impact in their chosen profession - enjoy!

1. ‘‘It’s important to have your mind operating on a high-level…that’s key as a quarterback, to be able to see things and how they relate to each other quickly. I think that’s exactly what NeuroTracker helps you do.’’

Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons Quarterback & NFL MVP

Interview with the New York Times

2. “I’ve noticed a big difference with batting pucks down, tracking stuff … If I’m looking down, my peripherals can see a red jersey, where it’s going. My dad always said, ‘If you’re going to lift a weight with your arm in the gym, why wouldn’t you go work your brain out with your eyes?’ It keeps me sharp."

Tom Wilson, NHL star player for the Washington Capitals

Interview with Sports Illustrated

3. ‘‘I believe in being the best that you can be. The nice thing about NeuroTracker is that you’re constantly competing with yourself.’’

Erin McLeod, Women’s Soccer Olympic Medalist, Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, Co-founder of The Mindful Project

Testimonial Interview with NeuroTracker

NeuroTracker Experts Corner blog coming soon!

4. ‘‘Everything would be blacked out except for what your eyes were looking at. The times I’ve putted the best were when I was using it.

Matt Fast, PGA Golfer

Interview with the New York Times

5. ‘‘This test is very interesting. You can be good at training, but if you’re head is not following, you won’t succeed.

Mae Berenice Meite, Olympic finalist and 6x French champion figure skater

Olympic Channel feature documentary

6. "That's been probably the thing for me that's been most exciting about this program is that you can actually see the differences and you can feel the differences."

Kaarle McCulloch, Olympic track cyclist

Interview with the Sydney Times

7. “I have spent a lot of hours developing what I can develop and I have seen the benefit, for sure…(NeuroTracker) shows that there is always a time when the mind gets tired and then you have to recover it again.’’

Lukasz Fabianski, West Ham United Premier League goalkeeper

Article by West Ham United

8. ‘‘This has all been made to model sport situations for your brain, and it really is able to stimulate your brain.”

Pavel Francouz, NHL Goalie for Colorado Avalanche

Article by NHL.com

9. ‘‘NeuroTracker has been life changing for me. It really helped me a lot. Everyone should do it.’’

Zac Bourgeois, Professional Rodeo Athlete, US junior national champion

Video interview with NeuroTracker

Experts Corner blog: A Window into the World of Rodeo Performance

10. ‘‘I know NeuroTracker has improved my attention, concentration and mental focus in a way that allows me to get into the zone when I need to.’’

Abhinav Bindra, 10m Air Rifle, India's first Olympic gold medalist

11. “It’s simply a vital tool for me now. It's helped me see things quicker, process information faster and sustain my attention for longer.’’

Aaron Cook, former world no.1 Taekwondo

12. ‘‘It’s extremely relevant in my sport because there are 5 to 3 riders, and I have to be aware of what everyone’s doing in order to win the race.’’

Josh Miller, World Snowboard Cross finalist

Psychology Mind Room interview by NSWIS

13. ‘‘It’s perfect to keep your attention on a lot of different things. I use it before a match to warm-up and get in the zone really quickly.’’

Andre, professional eSports athlete

Video interview with NeuroTracker

14. ‘‘I saw my NeuroTracking translate into my performance on the ice in just a few weeks.”

Kristen Campbell, WCHA Ice Hockey Goaltender of the Year

Video interview with NeuroTracker

Experts Corner blog: Getting Into the Mental Game of Sports Performance

15. ‘‘NeuroTracker is such an effective home training solution. It’s been invaluable for my game shape during quarantine.’’

Mike Santaguida, Pro Hockey Goalie and Founder of Goalie Hacks

Experts Corner blog: How to Achieve a State of Flow

16. ‘‘Your brain is really what separates you. Tracking balls as distractions are coming at you…is very similar to the Quarter Back position. It’s all about training your mind to read, react quickly, to get the edge up on the competition.’’

‍Josh Dobbs, NFL Tennessee Quarter Back

17. ‘‘I recovered my sports vision with NeuroTracker, it doubled my ability to concentrate on any exercise’’

Florian Cazenave, pro French Rugby Union player for Rugby Reggio

18. ‘‘Since I started NeuroTracker, I feel gains in my ability to take in information. I can read game situations earlier and make more effective decisions.’’

Stefan Bajic, Team France and Ligue 1 Goalkeeper for AS St. Etienne

19. ‘‘I work on my concentration with NeuroTracker, it serves to stay focused.’’

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, EPL striker for Arsenal F.C.

20. ‘‘I have greatly developed my neurovisual skills thanks to NeuroTracker training specially designed for me by my neurovision coach.’’

Marion Duvernay, Pro Golfer, European Tour Winner (2016)

21. ‘‘I’ve worked on my visual, cognitive and motor preparation with NeuroTracker and my neurovision coach to optimize my sports performance.’’

Paul Petit, European LeMans Race Driver

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Many thanks to all the athletes here and others who have shared their personal experiences and views on NeuroTracker. If you found these insights interesting, then check out our earlier blog with quotes from a fascinating array of experts across a variety of fields of human performance and wellness.

21 Awesome Quotes from 21 NeuroTracker Experts

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In modern times and through millennia traditionally, mindfulness has been utilized for many purposes. Perhaps the most important use is the reduction of stress and anxiety, partly because these factors are well-known to inhibit our ability to perform and grow through our daily lives, as well as pose risks for our health and overall well-being. As a holder of a doctorate in Mindfulness and founder of The Mindful Project, I’m always keen to share insights as to what this technique really has to offer, especially so during these difficult times. In this blog I’ll cover the basics of mindfulness, why it’s the ideal modern medicine for stress, and also explain why athletes and students in particular can benefit from practice.

The Basics

Defined as a conscious directing of awareness, mindfulness is essentially the mastery of your attention to focus on the moment and be aware of your place in the present. As I like to explain, mindfulness is being fully present in the moment, aware of our thoughts and feelings, but not judging them or allowing them to distract us. This allows us to have a measured, appropriate response to the things happening around us, instead of reacting based on our stress or anxiety.

Research suggests that people tend to spend around 30% of their time thinking about the past, 60% about the future, and only 10% on the present. The ability to consciously focus more on the present is where the primary benefits of mindfulness are found, which include empowering individuals through feeling more in control of their life, and increasing adaptability to one’s own life.

Rooted in Buddhist psychology and Buddhist Vipassana meditation, it’s practice dates back almost 2000 years. A biomedical scientist from the University of Massachusetts Medical School is credited with bringing the non-religious version of mindfulness to western society in the 1970’s. In recent decades growing scientific research has given credence to the applied value of this method. And in recent years, the internet and technological innovations such as biofeedback, neurofeedback and a slew of apps have helped fuel a much more widespread acceptance.

‘‘Medicine of the Future’’

A 2016 Harvard Health article reported an exponential growth in the acceptance of mindfulness by doctors as a form of treatment for patients with pain and disease. A staggering 80% of medical schools are now teaching courses in mindfulness.

My own secondary research findings from 25 studies with over 7,000 participants show that mindfulness can be highly effective for managing excessive or chronic stress and anxiety, along with the associated negative effects on both the body and mind.

Health is an area of life that affects all human beings. Life altering disease in one’s own life or in the life of loved ones can greatly increase personal stress and anxiety. Studies focused on the biological effects of practice have discovered the ability of mindfulness to activate a relaxation response in the body, lowering epinephrine and cortisol production, blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen consumption.

Research utilizing mindfulness with patients in the medical field has shown its ability to reduce stress and anxiety in:-

• Cancer patients and survivors

• Employees suffering mental distress from career burnout

• Cardiovascular patients

• Mental health patients

• Burn patients

• Patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis

Other experts in the medical field tout the effectiveness of mindfulness to reduce patients’ anxiety to actively improve their ability to heal from injury and disease. I am sure there is much more to learn with further research, which is why Dr. Ronald Siegal of Harvard Medical School dubbed this form of mental training as ‘‘Medicine of the Future’’.

Mindfulness for Athletic Performance

As well as mindfulness, my academic background includes degrees in exercise science and athletic training. Bringing these fields together I’ve spent over two decades coaching collegiate women’s soccer at the NCAA and NAIA levels. From first-hand insights I can tell you that many athletes experience a significant amount of stress and or anxiety associated with the constant pressures of their sport. These pressures are often confounded by the fact that they typically go under-recognized, and that many athletes are also students, and vice versa.

Elite athletes are increasingly using mindfulness for sport performance enhancement and injury rehabilitation. Dr. Colleen Hacker is a icon for this approach. Serving as Mental Skills Coach for the US Women’s National Soccer team and the US Women’s Olympic Hockey team, she has helped the teams achieve great success. In an interview she explained that at the professional level, the difference between good and great professional athletes is the ability to win the mental game.

A more familiar icon is LeBron James, who even uses mindfulness during his game, and as shown in this video clip, is an open advocate.

Aside from mental focus, research-based results of mindfulness interventions with athletes have demonstrated these specific benefits.

• Reduced incidence of injury

• Reduced stress

• Improved athletic performance

• Improved flow in sport performance

• Increased athletic coping skills

• Decreased anxiety and pessimism

• Reduced likelihood of burnout

Mindfulness for Educational Performance

Although everyone is aware that stress can negatively affect our health, it’s less well known that it can hinder our ability to learn. Stress and anxiety for students and academics has been found to lead to test anxiety and reduced cognitive ability. This can decrease a students’ ability to learn effectively. Poor performance in school can lead to even more stress or anxiety, creating a cycle of negative physical and emotional outcomes.

Education takes up a large chunk of most people’s lives, and most importantly, this happens during years when the brain’s biological and psychological development is going through it’s most formative stages of development. If you think about how influential this cyclical relationship between stress and academic performance can be, then it’s easy to imagine how it can greatly affect years of learning development and long term educational outcomes.

Accordingly stress and anxiety has become an increasing concern in the area of academics, leading to many studies seeking an effective intervention for this challenge. Research in mindfulness interventions has been central, with studies showing the effectiveness in the reduction of stress and anxiety in medical students, college students, high school, middle school, and elementary students. Specific benefits from these studies show,

• A reduction in test anxiety

• The ability to think more clearly and focus on school-related tasks

• Improved sleep quality

Again, more research is needed and is ongoing, particularly on the long-term benefits. One of the key advantages of learning to be mindful is that it becomes an acquired skill. The younger a student masters the technique, the more likely they will be to reap the rewards throughout their educational journey.

Takeaways

If you’re new to mindfulness then I hope this blog has opened your mind to the benefits anyone can achieve through this form of mental training, particularly for facing the challenges of prolonged COVID lockdowns. Here are some key points we covered.

• Mindfulness has a long tradition of practice

• Evidence shows it is especially effective at helping people manage stress and anxiety

• Mindfulness can play a direct role in promoting physical and mental wellbeing

• Athletes and students can benefit in ways that have positive real-world outcomes

Overall, an improvement in the feeling of control one has over their life, whether it be through improved health, athletic, or academic performance, can increase feelings of empowerment in individuals.

If you’d like to learn more, you can listen to this free podcast.

Dr. Rachel Lindvall & Erin McLeod | LIR on Mindfulness

If you’re interested in taking a training course in mindfulness, check out the services we offer at The Mindful Project, or if you'd like to explore mindfulness research here is a review article I wrote with references to all the study findings I've covered in this blog.

Mindfulness, Stress, & Anxiety Magazine Article

Lastly, for a deep-dive into the practical side of mindfulness training, look out for a follow-up to this blog by co-founder of The Mindful Project and Canadian sports hall of fame soccer player, Erin McLeod.

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As a technology adopted across a wide variety of human performance domains, the NeuroTracker team is privileged to get rare insights on how experts put the neurotechnology to use to. Here we are proud to share 5 great interviews from different experts, each at the top of their game or field - enjoy!

General Pete Palmer

Retired US Army General Pete Palmer served over 32 years in the Army, which included four tours with NATO and in Kosovo and Iraq. He is now the national-level vice chair for the National Defense Industrial Association-Human Systems Division, acting as a thought leader and advisor for the future evolution of US military services.

In this exclusive interview with NeuroTracker, General Palmer presents the challenge of assessing the operational readiness of military personnel to the standards in place for machines and equipment. For example he explains that there are numerous checks and safeguards in place to make sure a tank is ready to perform as expected, but not for the humans who operate it. The solution? Neurotechnologies like NeuroTracker that can measure readiness for real-world action.

You can also read General Palmer's Experts Corner blog going into more detail on this topic.

Assessing the Cognitive Operational Readiness of Military Personnel

Katie Mitchell

Wearer of many hats, Katie Mitchell, PhD(c), MScPT, CAT(C) is a clinician, PhD researcher, and educator. Owner of Thrive NeuroSport Rehabilitation and Performance and Clinical NeuroSport Education, her clinical practice takes a cutting-edge approach specializing in concussion, orthopaedics and neurosport performance.

As a neuroscientist and sports medicine practitioner, Katie Mitchell provides great insights on why remote training with neurotechnologies is transforming services for her clients. As she explains, implementing NeuroTrackerX has been a game changer for her Thrive NeuroSport practice, dramatically expanding the business's client reach.

If you're interested in learning more about remote training and telehealth services, then also check out Katie's Expert Corner blog.

Why NeuroTracker Remote Training is a Game Changer‍

Erin McLeod

Erin McLeod earned her spot in the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame as a soccer goalie with 4 FIFA World Cups and two Olympic Games under her belt, including taking Canada to the World Cup quarter finals and achieving a bronze medal at the London 2012 Games! She is also co-founder of the Mindful Project, dedicated to teaching mindfulness techniques for enhancement of human performance and wellness.

Here Erin candidly reveals her secrets as to why NeuroTracker has been not only pivotal in her sports career, but also in her evolution of mindfulness training and life performance off-the-pitch.

Zac Bourgeois

Zac Bourgeois achieved his bull-riding stripes by becoming a national high-school champion, and is now a young, fast-rising professional Rodeo Athlete with his sights set on becoming a world champion.  In this rapidly evolving sport Zac explains why the new breeds of super-bulls will demand a whole new level of bull-riding skills.

To meet this challenge head-on, he believes his discovery of neurotech tools like NeuroTracker and Neurofeedback may help him set the standards for others to follow. He also shares how the neurotech tools he initially used to get back to peak shape after a severe brain injury accident, are now the tools that can elevate his performance to the next level.

If you'd like to get more insights into why this unique sport is so fascinating, then also read Zac's Experts Corner blog.

A Window into the World of Rodeo Performance‍

Kristen Campbell

Kristen Campbell is an elite ice hockey goaltender with a slew of accolades at the highest levels of the NCAA, including 2 X All- American (2018 & 2019), 2019 Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player, 2018 & 2019 WCHA Goaltender of the Year, 2018 Top 10 Patty Kaz Finalist, as well performing for Team Canada U18 and U22.

Here Kristen shares her story of how she was originally coached on NeuroTracker, saw the benefits it had on her mental game, and transitioned to adopting the technology as part of her personal training protocols at home, on the road, and to get in the zone pre-competition. Her interview here has great advice for anyone interested in cognitive training for their personal performance needs.

You can also check out Kristen's Experts Corner blog on why cognitive training is key to achieving peak athletic potential.

Getting Into the Mental Game of Sports Performance

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If you enjoyed this blog, then you can get more insights from experts at the top of their fields here.

10 Leaders in Human Performance Give Their 2 Cents on NeuroTracker

Or if you'd like to see more interviews with key opinion leaders, then head to our YouTube Channel!

Exploding neuroscience research and the constant evolution of neurotechnologies are transforming the way clinicians deliver rehabilitation and sports performance training. In this blog, I'll describe how remote training has allowed me to utilize my time more efficiently and to provide more comprehensive services for my clients and patients. I will also use NeuroTracker as a specific example of why combining traditional clinical practices with objective home training is truly a game changer for clinicians.

The Neurosport Perspective

I have been a full-time PhD clinical researcher for the past 4 years in the department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. My current research is focused on the integration of visual perception (e.g., dynamic visual acuity), balance control, and exertion with adolescents to young adult athletes with and without concussion. I am also a Registered Physiotherapist, Certified Athletic Therapist and founder of Thrive Neurosport Rehabilitation and Performance. My passion for neuroscience and sports medicine has led me to connect these concepts utilizing the latest research and neurotechnologies in my clinical practice and for educating other clinicians.

At Thrive Neurosport I provide services in two main areas.

• Physiotherapy - In-person and telehealth physiotherapy and concussion management

• NeuroSport Performance - Clinical assessment & training using objective technology

I work with active individuals and athletes of all levels, connecting how the brain and body work together to level-up performance in sport and life through,

• Education and empowerment

• Exercise prescription and programming (strength, mobility, balance, vestibular, etc.)

• Sensorimotor integration and training

• Other care interventions including manual therapy, dry needling and acupuncture

Within my clinical space, I have access to a fully functional gym and a comprehensive range of assessment and training resources, so I can provide more rigorous interventions for athletes than a traditional physiotherapy clinic. Particularly for concussion recovery, I can integrate clinical domains such as exertion, sensorimotor function, and cognition to help determine return to sport readiness or to measure readiness for day-to-day life activities.

In addition to my clinical practice, I also lead a clinical education platform for healthcare and movement professionals called, Clinical NeuroSport Education (CNS-Ed). My hope is to connect the concepts that I have learned through years of research and practice to enhance current approaches to recovery and performance training. Since I have a limited capacity to spend time in both the lab and my clinic, I have sought out modern approaches to optimize my resources to provide for patients and clients. Particularly with the current restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, this has become a much bigger priority for myself and many others.

The Hybrid Model of Service

Until 2020 I conducted all of my work in person, which was always challenging with time constraints. However, in the past year I’ve adopted what I call a “hybrid model” of care. This involves incorporating remote telehealth assessments and more robust training interventions that clients do at home. It includes offering or prescribing home exercise packages for athletes that include cognitive training online via remote software platforms and other individualized drills.

This model has worked incredibly well for creating greater accessibility to a wide range of clients and patients, as well as optimizing the time spent training when it works best for them. Whereas prior to this approach, training could only be conducted in-clinic, and so I had a limited capacity when I could see patients and clients. A key benefit is that now I  can prioritize that time to provide more robust assessments. This model has led to greater adherence to programming and overall improvements in key aspects of training.

Working with NeuroTrackerX

The new NeuroTrackerX platform is a role model neurotechnology that fits perfectly with my Neurosport perspective for remote training. For example, I can use it in-clinic or online to do an initial baseline assessment, then create a custom program tailored to the individual’s needs that they perform at home.  I can also monitor their performance and give remote feedback, maintaining open communication in-between clinic visits.

Here are 6 specific reasons why NeuroTrackerX works so well with the hybrid model.

1. Simple task – although every session is challenging, anyone can understand how to do it within a minute, making it accessible to a range of patients and clients.
2. Bite-size training – each session takes around 6 minutes, which makes it ideal for fitting in training pretty much anytime, and with very low time commitments for the client.
3. Assessment monitoring – NeuroTracker scores are an excellent scientific measure of high-level perceptual-cognitive functions, allowing me to objectively track performance over time.
4. Flexible performance enhancement – because this 3D-mulitple object tracking task provides top-down training effects on neural processing, the benefits are relevant for all my patients and clients.
5. Continuously progressive training – NeuroTracker never stops adapting to the user, meaning it keeps the user in a proximal zone of development.
6. Skill-specific dual-tasks – training can continuously evolve to meet the demands of the user. For example, adding secondary tasks (e.g., stick handling for ice hockey) while NeuroTracking. This expands the training benefits, as well as allowing key skills to be developed under high-cognitive load to simulate the pressure of sport competition.

If you are new to NeuroTracker, here's an introductory demo video for the core task.

Implementing tools like NeuroTrackerX as a remote training solution has not only transformed the quality of service I can offer, but also the number of clients I can serve. Naturally, this is helpful for the bottom line of a small business. With the many facets of my professional career, I must consider the efficiency of having augmented revenue coming in without significantly increasing my time commitment.

In addition, I can also serve patients with concussion further into full recovery and keep relationships with performance-focused athletes longer, because the benefits are on-going. Most importantly, I can provide a better standard of overall service providing an objective, research-informed approach to my practice.

From the client’s perspective they feel empowered because they can see their progress and have the freedom to access their personal training every day, compared to being limited to just once or twice a week.

Seeing the Benefits

Since transitioning to a hybrid model and implementing regular NeuroTracker training,  clinical outcomes have been superb. For example, from an injury prevention perspective, athletes may attend to more information within their field of play and develop the ability to make successful quick decisions. In dynamic contact sports environments, this may help improve their ability to widen their perspective, react effectively, and potentially avoid taking a hit that they wouldn’t normally see coming.

The increased accessibility and frequency of training also means that I can track perceptual-cognitive recovery and return-to-play readiness more accurately with greater data points. Overall, this approach is taking rehab and performance to another level with greater transfer to real-life and sports environments.

The Future of Rehab and Performance Training

I think integrating a hybrid model of online and in-person services is the future of rehab and performance. This approach will be paramount in athletic performance moving forward. Obviously with the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, telehealth has proven to be invaluable when clients can’t physically come to the clinic, as well as just for keeping game-ready when normal training is compromised.

The fact that objective tools like NeuroTrackerX can allow me to not only track, but also interact with the client through the software, adds an additional level of service and care. I can prompt clients to train if needed, although compliance with athletes and patients to date has been excellent. The main takeaway is that I can regularly touch base with patients near or far without seeing them in person, while providing a research-informed training intervention.

With my passion for connecting neuroscience and sports medicine, I’m excited for continued development is this field. The fact is this new technology is just opening doors to access a whole other side of training and rehab. It's so accessible for everyone that it will be pivotal in my approach to rehabilitation and performance moving forward.

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If you are or people you know have been experiencing unusual sleep problems this year, then you are not alone. In a report from the National Institutes of Health, medical researchers found that the COVID-19 pandemic has been found to trigger insomnia. With the added challenges of dealing with the pandemic, more individuals are experiencing “coronasomnia”, a particular type of insomnia triggered by the many effects the coronavirus and quarantine has had on our daily lives. The good news is that a great deal of research has been done on understanding what causes sleep problems, along with the antidotes for good quality sleep. Here is an easy to digest guide on how to beat coronasomnia and sleep well during lockdown.

What is Insomnia and What Causes it?

Insomnia basically means you have consistent problems sleeping over extended periods of time. This can be weeks, months, or even years. Many studies have shown that lack of sleep both acutely and chronically impacts cognitive functions that we need to perform well at work or school. The NHS in the UK claims insomnia can be identified if you regularly experience these symptoms:-

• find it hard to go to sleep
• wake up several times during the night
• lie awake at night
• wake up early and cannot go back to sleep
• still feel tired after waking up
• find it hard to nap during the day even though you're tired
• feel tired and irritable during the day
• find it difficult to concentrate during the day because you're tired

According to Mayo Clinic, insomnia can also be diagnosed medically through physical exams, sleep habits reviews, and sleep studies. Some medical professionals also use advanced medical imaging technology to detect rarer forms of insomnia.

Common causes of insomnia include:-

• Stress
• Irregular sleep schedule
• Poor sleep environment (e.g. noisy, uncomfortable bed)
• Disruptions in circadian rhythm (e.g. jetlag)
• Poor sleeping habits (e.g. using smartphone in bed)
• Mental health disorders (e.g. anxiety, depression)
• Physical illnesses and pain
• Medications
• Neurological problems (e.g. concussion)
• Specific sleep disorders (e.g. apnea)
• Lack of exercise
• Inappropriate diet or drinks (e.g. excessive caffeine or alcohol)

What is Coronasomnia?

Coronasomnia is essentially the same experience of the symptoms of insomnia mentioned above, but caused by more specific factors related to the psychological, social or habitual lifestyle changes affecting your wellbeing. This can either due to the pandemic itself, or the impacts that lockdowns are having on most peoples lives. The most likely factors behind Coronasomnia include:-

• Stress
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Lack of exercise
• Changes in normal daily routines

For numerous reasons, increases in stress, anxiety and depression have been widely reported to have risen in levels and seriousness since quarantines began around the world. As shown by this US research data, these appear to be progressing over time.

Unfortunately the door swings both ways, as lack of sleep can also contribute to mood disorders, as well as be a symptom of them. In either case, getting a sound night's rest on a regular basis is a critical factor for your mental and physical wellness.

What Can I Do About Coronasomnia?

If you have been diagnosed as having a sleeping disorder, your physician may recommend therapy, natural remedies or pharmaceuticals as sleep treatments. We will cover these later on.

However, if you have already identified that you are experiencing coronasomnia, then in most cases insomnia is alleviated, or gets better, by simply shifting sleep routines towards good habits. The bonus here is that once you adopt such habits, it's likely that you will learn how to sleep better generally. This can be particularly important during what's dubbed as the Winter blues.

So, aside from seeking the best alternative treatments, you can try these established tips to help you sleep more soundly during times of quarantine.

7 Tips to Beat Coronasomnia

1. Follow a healthy daily routine.

To fight off coronasomnia, try to establish and follow a generally healthy daily routine, and avoid unhealthy habits.

You should stay active and get some exercise during the day. Staying active reduces stress and helps maintain the body’s normal rhythms.

If you have work, remind yourself to take a break frequently, just as you would if you worked in an office. During lunch breaks, you can even go for a short walk to take a breather.

Avoid strenuous activities at night and turn down the lights at home about thirty minutes before bed. According to an article published in UC Davis Health, bright lights prevent the brain from producing melatonin, a hormone that helps you sleep.

2. Try not to use your phone before going to bed.

According to research, the blue light from gadgets, like tablets, phones, and computers, sends signals to the body to stay awake. The blue light also hinders melatonin production.

Instead of using your phone, you may just read your favorite book before going to sleep.

3. Do not work from your bed.

If you work from home, you should avoid working from your bed. This practice ensures that you are conditioned to think that the bed is a place of rest.

If you have nowhere else to work but in your bedroom, at least make sure not to work from bed.

4. Avoid late dinners.

Avoid eating dinner late to allow your body to digest food properly before going to sleep. If you plan on turning in at 11:00 PM, try not to eat after 7:00 PM.

Every time you go to sleep, your body shuts down all metabolic processes, including digestion.

5. Try to limit news consumption.

If you want to have a more restful sleep, limit the amount of news you read, especially before going to bed.

According to Angela Drake, a clinical professor from UC Davis Health’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, the brain cannot handle constant news alerts and headlines. The clinical professor likened this phenomenon to a car alarm constantly going off inside the brain.

6. Lessen caffeine and alcohol intake.

Go easy on alcohol and caffeine if you want to sleep better amidst the pandemic.

According to one study, 400mg of caffeine taken six hours before bedtime reduces sleep by an hour(8). Another study suggested that drinking large amounts of alcohol before bed may result in poor sleep quality.

7. Learn meditation.

You may also take up meditation to get a good night’s sleep. These relaxing exercises could improve sleep, highlighting the importance of the mind and body connection.

Although meditation takes a little practice, it is worth trying as it may lower your stress hormones.

Tapping into meditative effects, sleep apps are also a popular choice for many people, here are Healthline's Best Insomnia Apps of 2020

Established Treatments for Insomnia

If changes in sleep habits are not successful, then there are a range of treatment approaches that can be tried to cure insomnia, some of which do not require medications. It's worth learning what these are if you plan to discuss options with your doctor, so that you can explore what may fit best for your particular needs.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

One of the most common treatments for the sleep disorder is cognitive behavioral therapy. According to Mayo Clinic, cognitive behavioral therapy may help you establish a good sleep routine and avoid unhealthy practices that keep you from sleeping well. Here are some cognitive behavioral therapy strategies as listed by Mayo Clinic.

Relaxation Techniques

If your physician recommends relaxation methods, you can use techniques to control your heart rate, breathing, mood, and muscle tension. These practices enable you to relax.

Relaxation strategies include progressive muscle relaxation, breathing exercises, and biofeedback (the use of visual or auditory feedback to control involuntary body functions). These techniques can reduce anxiety during bedtime, preparing you for a more restful sleep.

Neurofeedback is a more neuroscience driven approach which involves being aware of your actual brainwave activity and learning how to train yourself to move into more positive states of mind, such as remaining calm. Some research has shown this method to be more effective than biofeedback, and consumer-level neurofeedback devices, such as Muse, have been affordable to most people in recent years.

Stimulus Control Therapy

Stimulus control therapy helps eliminate factors that condition your brain to resist sleep. This approach may involve setting consistent bedtimes and waking times, using the bed solely for sleep or sex, or avoiding naps.

Some physicians may even recommend leaving the bedroom if you cannot sleep within 20 minutes and returning when you are finally sleepy only.

Paradoxical Intention Therapy

Paradoxical intention therapy involves remaining passively awake, and can reduce the worries and anxieties you have about not being able to sleep.

With paradoxical intention, your physician may advise you to get in bed and try to stay awake, instead of getting in bed and expecting to fall asleep immediately.

Light therapy

Light therapy involves using lights to adjust your internal clock. Your doctor may recommend light therapy if you sleep and wake too early.

Adjusting your internal clock is possible by using a lightbox or going outside during times of the year when it is not too dark in the evenings.

Sleep Restriction Therapy

Sleep restriction therapy aims to trigger partial sleep deprivation by reducing the time you spend in bed. Sleep restriction also involves avoiding naps during the day.

Partial sleep deprivation helps you get more tired by the next night. Once your sleep quality has improved, bedtime also gradually increases.

Pharmacological Treatments

If non-pharmacological treatment does not cure your insomnia during the pandemic, you and your doctor should consider the use of medications. Prescription sleeping pills may help you get a restful sleep. Or alternatively, melatonin supplements can be bought over-the-counter and are considered a natural sleep aid.

Doctors generally do not advise relying on sleeping pills for more than a few weeks. Still, there are several sleep medications approved for long-term use:

●    Ramelteon (Rozerem)

●    Eszopiclone (Lunesta)

●    Zolpidem (Ambien, Edluar, Intermezzo,and Zolpimist)

●    Zaleplon (Sonata)

Despite the promise of sleep, prescription sleeping pills, much like other medications, come with side effects, such as daytime grogginess, increased risk of falling, or risk of drug dependence. It is recommended to talk to your doctor about these medications and their possible side effects.

You can also opt for non-prescription sleep aids containing antihistamines (anti-allergy). It is recommended to seek advice from your doctor before taking over-the-counter medications, since antihistamines are not intended for regular use. Antihistamines may also come with side effects, such as dizziness, daytime sleepiness, cognitive decline, confusion, and difficulty urinating, which could worsen in elderly patients.

Hopefully if you or someone you know are experiencing coronasomnia, some of the solutions covered in this guide will help with getting back into regular and restful slumber. If you wish to explore more advice on adopting healthy sleeping habits, then also read these blogs.

Simple Life Hacks for Great Sleep

8 Health Benefits to Being an Early Riser

Lastly, if you're in need of some motivation, here's a handy infographic to help you stay mindful of the benefits of a good night's rest.

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Although it’s been a difficult year for most fields of science, the golden age of neuroscience has continued to thrive at an accelerating pace throughout 2020. In particular there have been multiple sci-fi like breakthroughs for mapping our brains, major developments for improving human health into older age, and the dawn of a new era of AI-based neuroscience. Lets take a look at 9 of the top neuroscience discoveries of this past year.

1. Live 3D Brain Function Mapping

Earlier this year MIT scientists developed a new technique to pair structural mapping (brain anatomy) with functional mapping (how the brain behaves) - the first time this has been properly achieved. In addition, this has been done in live mice, with the mapping performed across mouse brain regions in real-time. This video gives an idea of how fascinating it is to see the coupling of brain structures and live activity changing in response to a mouse being shown different images.

The vanguard technique combines third-harmonic generation (THG) three-photon microscopy with retinotopic mapping, allowing activity to be observed through deep brain tissue via electrical signatures.

It also delivers stunning resolution, allowing individual neurons and their substructures to be studied, as well as fine blood vessels and myelin – a kind of insulator known to be a critical factor in brain processing speed.  

This study focused on the visual centers of the brain, but the same method can be used to study other regions. It promises to be a powerful tool for understanding differences in healthy and diseased brain states, as well as how the brain responds to environmental stimulation.

2. Seeing Decisions Being Made in the Brain

Stanford University made a key breakthrough with a new bifocal microscopy technique called COSMOS. Their work captured movies of neural activity across the whole of the cerebral cortex of a mouse brain.

These signals were recorded by essentially filming the brain from three different angles, then computationally extracting signals to provide a live video of macroscopic activity over the left and right hemispheres. Here is a sample where you literally see the remarkable electrical storm of a real brain in action.

As the cortex handles complex higher-level cognitive functions, more mysterious behaviors like decision-making processes can now start to be unraveled in a global way. For example for understanding of the relationship of decisions dependent on sensory perception and motor function (think about what’s involved in deciding which way to dodge an oncoming car).

The researchers also expect COSMOS to be a low-cost method for screening the effects of psychiatric drugs, so that they can be developed to be more functionally effective.

3. Sleep Breakthrough for Artificial Brains

As we’ve covered in a previous blog, a major breakthrough for Google’s Deep Mind artificial intelligence program came through mimicking the neo-cortical columns of the human mind. This led to vastly increased intelligence using a fraction of the computing power. As a result this human-modelled AI has now surpassed the world’s best chess, Go and then eSports players at their own games.

Though not fully understood, sleep provides a critical function for mammalian and human brains, with serious problems occurring whenever sleep deprivation is endured. This year Los Alamos National Laboratory discovered that the spiking computational networks of AI systems also suffer a kind of sleep deprivation, becoming unstable when performing for long periods without rests. Yet, when put into a network state similar to the brainwaves we experience during sleep, optimal performance was restored.

This may not sound like such a big deal, but advancements in AI are likely to transform the way we all our lives. The findings also hint that the merging disciplines of neuroscience and AI field could yield a new era of super smart computers.

4. Tiny Implant Allows Paralyzed Patients to Control a Computer

A minuscule brain device has been used to improve quality of life patients with severe upper limb paralysis caused by motor neuron disease. Carried out at the University of Melbourne, this trial implanted the new micro technology inside the brains of the participants.

The device called Stentrode™ was inserted through keyhole surgery into the neck, and from there moved into the motor cortex via blood vessels. This minimally invasive method avoids the associated risks and recovery complications of open brain surgery.

The implant uses wireless technology to relay specific neuronal activity into a computer, where it is converted in actions based off the intentions of the patients. Amazingly, this tiny chip allowed the patients to perform actions like click and zoom, and write with 93% accuracy, helping them do things we take for granted like text, email and shop online.  

It's very early days still, but the minimally invasive nature of the treatment shows the great potential for micro neurotechnologies to help aid people with all kinds of cognitive impairments.

5. Neuroscientists Turn Normal Neurons Into Regenerating Ones

In 2018 we reported that scientists learned how to reprogram stem cells into specific neurons. This year researchers from four different US universities have taken a bigger step towards the holy grail of life extension. By identifying genes networks that regulate cellular regeneration, they have been able to manipulate normal cells to turn into progenitor cells, which can morph into any cell type to replace dying cells.

Their proof of concept was carried out with the glial cells of Zebra fish, effectively converting them into stem cells which then detected and restored damaged retinal cells to recover impaired vision.

Cell death, or apoptosis, is a plays a big role in the inevitably of natural aging in humans. The researchers believe that the process for regenerating neurons in the brain will be similar. If successful it will have vast implications for conditions such as Alzheimer’s Disease, where large regions of the brain can be lost to the death of neurons. It may also play a role in preventing the many side-effects of natural aging in the brain, for longer and healthier living in peak shape into old age.

6. Preventing Neurodegeneration

Rather than replaced dying cells, scientists at Heidelberg University have identified key processes involved in the death of brain cells, called neurodegeneration. It involved uncovering the process by which cellular glutamate uptake prevents cell death in healthy people, yet becomes inactive in diseased state like stroke, where oxygen supply to brain cells becomes restricted.

In effect this leads to cell killing themselves off simply because they are not getting the correct chemical signals to tell them to stay alive. The researchers then developed a special class of inhibitors that can step in and deactivate the cellular ‘death complex’ before it occurs.

The inhibitors showed to be highly effective at protecting nerve cells, hopefully leading to a new class of treatments options for neurodegenerative diseases.

7. Parkinson’s Disease is One of Two Different Diseases

Aarhus University researchers have used advanced PET and MRI imaging techniques to reveal Parkinson’s disease to actually be either of two different variants of the disease.

In one variant the disease starts in the intestines, going on to spread to the brain through neural connections. In the other, it starts in the brain and then moves into the intestines and other organs. This video gives a great overview.

Though not curative, it’s a major step in the right direction for being able to identify early stage onset for preventative measures. For example, it may lead to treatments which prevent the disease from even making it into the brain altogether, where the effects then become debilitating over time. It is also another key piece in the puzzle of the powerful symbioses between our intestines and our mind, known scientifically as the gut-brain axis.

8. AI Advances the Challenging Diagnoses of Brain Injuries

Scientists at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London have developed a new type of AI algorithm that can detect, differentiate and identify different types of brain injuries from topographical CT scan data.

CT scans collect a huge amount of data which can take experts hours to analyze, and this needs to include the collective evaluation of multiple scans over time in order to track recovery trajectories or disease progression. This new AI tool appears to better than human experts at detecting such changes, as well as being far quicker and cheaper.

For example, their research showed the software to be highly effective at automatically quantifying the progression of multiple types of brain lesions, helping predict which lesions would get larger. The innovative application of this type of AI to assist human analysis is likely to be first of many that will transform medical diagnostics in cost-effective ways.

9. Secret of Super-Agers Discovered

Super-agers are individuals whose cognitive skills are way past their peers in old age, retaining youthful mental abilities well into their 70s and 80s. Until now the secret to retaining their peak shape has been little understood.

University Hospital Cologne and the Research Center Juelich have discovered a key difference in their biology. Using PET scans they revealed that super-agers have markedly increased resistance to tau and amyloid proteins. Until recent years these proteins have proven difficult to study.

Super-agers also have lower levels of tau and amyloid pathology, which in turns leads to various kinds of neurodegeneration in most people in their later years. It’s now been identified that reduced resistance to tau and amyloid accumulation is a primary biological factor for the loss of peak cognitive shape.

New research can be focused on these processes to find ways to possibly cure mental decline generally, as well as help develop therapeutics to protect against forms of dementia that are already occurring.

We hope you found these neuroscience highlight interesting. If you're keen to learn more about the remarkable pace of progress in neuroscience, then also read our blogs on the highlights of the previous three years.

Top 3 Mind-blowing Neuroscience Stories of 2019

5 Neuroscience Breakthroughs of 2018

7 Major Developments in Neuroscience of 2017

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Christmas is humanity’s number one reason to be cheerful. That said, this year’s holidays are like no other. The long pandemic lockdown has led to lots of media over the past few weeks talking about how Christmas will be ruined just like the rest of the year. It may be the most difficult year in most people’s living memory, however neuroscience suggests that Christmas could be just the psychological antidote we are looking for. Read on to see why the festive break could lift our spirits when we need it most.

A Tough Year

In the first few months of the COVID-19 outbreak the number one concern in the public mind and for governments world-wide, was the direct health threat of the disease. It’s likely fair to say that few people actually predicted that the less direct effects of prolonged lockdowns would become such huge challenges to society overall.

Around the globe countries have been experiencing major and ongoing economic challenges at every level throughout 2020. Perhaps most disconcerting are the widespread reports of the toll on the general public’s psychological and social wellbeing. Sustained isolation and loneliness has brought with it unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression, even for people have never experienced the conditions.

A Doom and Gloom Christmas?

The emotional button for most people this yuletide is the worry of not being able to spend time with friends, family, and loved ones. Indeed the focus of the media has been very much centered around the anticipated frustration and disappointment of this annual celebration, with headlines like ‘It's just not worth it’.

The Guardian actually titled an article: ‘It’s a day like any other. So why have the Christmas Covid rules brought me to tears?’ Even comparing the UK lockdown guidelines to the chaos of Brexit and quoting Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham’s line ‘Call off Christmas!’ But will the coming Noel really be something to dread rather than look forward to? Let’s take a look at the flipside.

A Time of Unity

History is often our best guide for predicting the future. For people who celebrate it, past Christmas times have often brought the best out people in times of despair. The most iconic example is when German and British soldiers responded to years of misery and hardship in World War I trenches at The Battle of the Somme. Contrary to the will of military leadership, a staggering 100,000 troops from both sides called a remarkable truce to put aside their differences against all odds, in order to share the spirit of Christmas.

Literally this involved ceasing shooting and shelling each other on one day, to sharing festive food, drinks, cigarettes and gifts the next. Some regiments even held international football competitions on the infamously deadly ‘no man’s land’.

Could it be that this winter’s holiday, despite the restrictions, might provide a psychosocial shift, helping to alleviate the grind of confinement? Let’s take a look at why neuroscience research hints that this period may be just what our brains’ need.

The Neuroscience of Christmas Cheer

The reason this holiday is the season to be jolly seems to come down to what is categorically defined by some neuroscientist as “Christmas cheer”. We all know this can be a powerful feeling of joy, warmth, or nostalgia. The Danes have a specific name for this cozy and partly magical feeling: ‘hygge’. Yet for most people it’s very hard to pin down what this feeling really is, and it’s certainly not the same for everyone.

For this reason researchers at the University of Denmark set out to investigate if there are neural correlates for this feeling inside the biology of our brains. To do this they showed participants festive images to see if they sparked yuletide sensations. They alternated these with completely none festive images. During this time their whole brains were scanned in an fMRI, which accurately monitors cognitive activity across regions throughout the brain via surges in blood flow.

The results showed that even just focusing on imagery of things like Christmas pudding or mince pies caused key brain regions to light up…like a Christmas tree! This included significant activity in neural networks related our sense of spirituality and also for memory. No such activity occurred for the unrelated images.

The study provides some scientific understanding that our past experiences of the holidays typically build-up strong, positive and life-long connections with the things we associate with those special times. It also indicates that Christmas cheer may actually be a distinct form of emotion in itself, allowing us to access a uniquely positive state of mind and novel feelings.

Radically Uplifting? Just Maybe…

Of course there are also people whose associations are not so positive, dubbed quite poetically as “bah humbug” syndrome! For most of us though, and as witnessed in the trenches of the Somme, this unusual mind state could be a cognitive activator for a radical boost in psychological wellness and unifying social behavior, especially when times are at their worst.

That said, even in this golden age of neuroscience we still just don’t know. This is because emotions are one of the biggest challenges to study, involving far reaching and deeply intertwined neuronal activity spanning across most of the regions of the brain. Its possible that emotions won’t be properly understood until we have AI powerful enough to decode the phenomenally complex and synchronistical interactions of literally billions of brain cells.

Place Your Bets!

So, what’s the takeaway here? Well, on one side the social climate of our current day media is quite pessimistic. On the other side, both history and neuroscience provide at least some objective indications that our life-long relationship with these religious based holidays might be an ideal antidote for our 2020 woes. We will have to wait and see, but solely because it’s Christmas time, we have a special reason to be extra optimistic!

Last but not least, if you have concerns about well-being over the holidays, for yourself or someone you know, here are 5 key tips from Mind - a leading public support service for better mental health.

1. Find ways to connect with others and share experiences

2. Get as much natural light and nature as you can

3. Explore ways of passing the time in winter

4. Look after your physical health

5. Take care with news and information

You can find lots more advice and support resources on their website.

https://www.mind.org.uk/

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In this first part of this two-part special I covered how well NeuroTracker works for stimulating psychological and environmental triggers of flow, breaking down how it fits at a practical level. In this second part blog I'll take a more top-down view of how this science-based neurotechnology is also great for hacking creative and social triggers of flow states.

Creative Triggers of Flow

Triggering creativity is all about novel experiences which place you in a state of mind for alternative thinking. This is where I have found the most flow and my clients have also found themselves loving the creation of a completely new or unique set of dual tasks or ways of training NeuroTracker based on their sport, goals, or just plain curiosity!

One goal-keeper decided to physically follow one ball across the screen as if it was an attacker and he had to cut them off. We now call that the ‘Joshy Jockey’, because in soccer to jockey is to cut that person off. Another example is a retired armed forces veteran, who performed 400 NeuroTracker sessions with me as part of his own PTSD post-recovery plan to get back to peak performance shape. At first I set the training schedule. After time, he took ownership and autonomy and I just assisted. He eventually took control of what session types and tasks he would do each session.

The best thing about NeuroTracker and the creativity trigger is the almost boundless nature of how many combinations of session types, number of targets, lengths of sessions, and kinds of tasks one can perform while doing NeuroTracker. Here is a great example of legendary ex-Manchester United coach Mick Clegg training taekwondo world champion Aaron Cook.

Then there are technologies and equipment that can be directly integrated with the NeuroTracker platform. Here are examples of combining biometric feedback and at AR Mental in Spain. On the left is a professional climber working on moves while tracking (imagine the task of scanning for the next hold) - it doesn't get much more novel than that!

We can understand someone’s composure often through their breath rate. So I also like to train my clients to inhale gently during the 1-2 seconds time when the target balls are shown, and then slowly exhale during the usual 8 second tracking. As the set of 20 repetitions progresses clients find themselves getting into a rhythmical breath rate and state. Focused, and yet composed. This harmonious syncing is another hallmark of flow states.

So by training both at the same time we are linking those systems together. Just like learning to drive and eventually being able change the radio station. In time, we can achieve automaticity to do it all seamlessly…but we need to put in the repetitions. It's training over time which yields the biggest benefits for real-world performance.

Social Triggers for Flow

Doing NeuroTracker alone is good, challenging, stimulating and rewarding. Yet, like many who go to the gym, there’s something special about a training buddy or a personal trainer who you’re accountable to, to inspire you, for you to support and challenge each other, and grow and celebrate your personal gains. That’s why I commit to being with all my local clients in their NeuroTracker sessions so I can encourage, celebrate their PBs, and even sometimes talk some smack talk to see if I can distract them or rattle their minds. I do it for their benefit…but I’m also a very cheeky man!.

We are ultimately humans and we are social creatures who regulate and affect each other through our presences. There’s something about teaming up and getting in sync with someone while training NeuroTracker. Whether to have someone put in your answers on the keyboard, or someone to take it in turns within a NeuroTracker set, or to challenge each other onwards and upwards.

Then with athletes in particular, competition is a big social motivator. Gotta get faster than the next person, and the great thing is that person is a moving target, because everyone training is always steadily improving.

The Promise of Flow and NeuroTracker

As a featured Alumni, I’ve twice travelled from Australia to the 1440 Multiversity in California to present NeuroTracker for the Flow Genome Project Coaches Certification program (2019, 2020). I chose to do so as I truly believe this training technology provides us with an epic way to prime our brains, vision, bodies and breath for more flow, focus, and composure.

I’ve practiced NeuroTracker while mentoring my clients over 7000 times now, and I'm also getting close to completing 1000 sessions myself. I have seen time and time again what happens when you speed up the brain of an athlete, student, or senior. They perform better. They learn faster. They experience more in-the-moment states of flow as they’ve trained themselves to shut out all distractions and exist in the here and now, rather than somewhere in their head, which is where I think people tend to spend too much of their lives.

NeuroTracker requires you to be externally focused and apply selective attention, in this way it’s a sneaky and perfect way to train mindfulness - if we find ourselves getting lost in our thoughts, we simply bring our eyes (and mind) back to the targets.

I’ll am currently writing a book on everything I’ve learned since starting my NeuroTracker journey in February of 2014, and I invite you to reach out to me at the The Brain Room. If you're interested in what that journey looks like in a snapshot, then also check out my recent Experts Corner blog.

Boosting Your Brain's Processing Capacity

In you missed the first part of this blog special, you can read it here.

The Art of Achieving Flow with NeuroTracker - Part 1

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New to NeuroTracker? Find out what our latest NeuroTrackerX platform has to offer to accelerate your path to improvement.

Announcing NeuroTrackerX!

Welcome to this first part of a two part blog taking a deep dive into the art of achieving flow. Flow is not a new concept, it's been a key theory of psychology for decades. However, what is new is that it can be achieved much more effectively with the help of a digital age neurotechnology - NeuroTracker! I love to explore this exciting space between neuroscience, psychology and human performance, exploring all the latest neurotechnologies to discover the next level game changer. In this first part I will cover the concepts and then the known psychological and environmental triggers of flow, and illustrate why NeuroTracker meets these needs so well.

The Concept of Flow States

It was mid 2017 after training hundreds of clients with NeuroTracker that I learned about the concept of flow states. I’ve known about “the zone” and “being unconscious” from White Men Can’t Jump and the NBA Jam arcade machine… when you just can’t miss and as Michael Jordan said, “the hoop was a big ol’ bucket… and I can’t miss!” The scientific definition of flow was developed by the founder of the concept, renown psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In a nutshell, it's this,

''The mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time.''

It's when you achieve this state of mind that you are truly in the growth zone. The book, Rise of Superman, clearly outlined over a dozen ‘flow triggers’ and the more I looked at what I do with clients at The Brain Room with NeuroTracker, the more I realized I was inadvertently using almost all of those flow triggers. Let me lay them out for you and map them in terms of how NeuroTracker is a very flexible tool for actually stimulating these triggers.

If you are new to NeuroTracker, then before reading on, I recommend watching this video to get a quick idea.

Psychological Triggers of Flow

There are 4 psychological triggers for flow that are used to define an optimal state of human consciousness when we feel and perform at our best. Here they are.

1. Intensely focused attention - with NeuroTracker nothing else is possible if you want to complete this 3D multiple object tracking training at your best. You must devote your entire field of peripheral vision, attention, concentration and working memory to keep track of those pesky yellow balls buzzing and whirling around the screen.

2. Clear goals - with NeuroTracker the instructions are very simple and clear. Track a set amount of objects for a set amount of time (usually four out of eight objects for 8 seconds). Do this a set amount of times (usually 20 repetitions per set).

3. Immediate feedback - NeuroTracker lets you know whether you succeeded or failed after each trial with a sound for success and a different sound for failure (as well as showing which targets you were supposed to be tracking).

4. Appropriate challenge/skills ratio - here’s where the NeuroTracker speed threshold staircase design takes the cake. When you get all four balls correct, in most session types, the speed of those balls increases the next repetition. Eventually pushing you beyond your capacity to track accurately. As you can see here, it doesn't matter who you are, or what your tracking level is, NeuroTracker constantly adapts the speed to your optimum threshold.

I’ve found from over 7000+ sessions an average 80% success rate for targets identified. Therefore maintaining a positive challenge without being overly frustrating and conversely, not being so easy that it becomes boring. This is known as the zone of optimal function, also known as optimal arousal. This is exactly where NeuroTracker's scientific algorithms love to keep you! And, as you get better, the NeuroTracker always gets faster. As I've written about before from my personal training, repeatedly getting into this zone with NeuroTracker drastically boosted my brain's processing capacity through a continuous improvement across 600 sessions.

Environmental Triggers of Flow

There are also 3 environmental triggers required for flow, which are,

1. High consequences - pushing your limits on NeuroTracker requires that you will fail at least 20% of the time. Failure feels heavy. Each time we step up to perform a NeuroTracker set we may fail and score low, especially if others are around. When you add in balance or sporting skills the risk can be falling, losing your balance or just not being able to perform the skill in the manner you normally would - because your brain is overloaded!

2. Rich environment - when an environment is novel, complex, and ever changing our brains demand full attention, as we have not yet worked out what to predict will come next. Hence we’re on full alert…which ties back to intensely focused attention. When we add a NeuroTracker Optic Flow session we create a rich sense of instability and distraction, sending us deeper into focused attention and flow just to be able to keep track of the target balls. The 3D, the complexity and the unknowing paths of the targets means NO TWO NEUROTRACKER REPETITIONS ARE EVER THE SAME. This isn’t something you can do passively, and when you reach high speeds like above 3.0 - then the task and it's virtual environment completely absorbs your attention.

3. Deep embodiment - here’s once again where NeuroTracker excels. This because the dual-tasks which can be performed while conducting a 3D-MOT session, are so rich, wide and deep. Some of my favorites include,

● Balancing on a swiss ball

● Skipping rope

● High intensity interval training (stationary bike)

● Juggling

● NeuroTracker Agility+ session (like dodging oncoming cars)

As you can see in this video where I attempt the insanely difficult task of juggling while balancing on a bosu ball and tracking, multiple neurophysical skills can be combined to challenge literally anyone's limits!

The Sky is the Limit

Once you start to experiment with NeuroTracker dual-tasks to trigger flow states, you quickly realize the only limit is your imagination. Some of my wilder dream dual tasks include,

● While in a sauna, ice bath or while treading water

● While slacklining or doing aerial silk hangs

● While in a floatation chamber

As an example, I provided a special flow program for my client, Motocross rider Jackson Richardson. For this program the goal was to utilize as many of these flow triggers as possible. We progressed him through basic standard sitting, standing, and balancing stages of NeuroTracker training. He improved rapidly with a 400% increase in max visual tracking speed (VTSmax). I then added riding a stationary bicycle at a rate to keep his heart rate about 150bpm.

Then we added in an audio recording from the onboard GoPro from an actual Monster Energy Cup race. The sounds of the engine revving, the crowd cheering, other bikes on his tail. We were simulating a race scenario…heart pumping, intensely focused attention, and real sounds he’d be hearing while racing. He went on to win the Australian Championships two years running - the first time he’d won that title!

I have dozens of other examples where I’ve crafted experiences to prime flow for athletes such as while dribbling a basketball while performing an Agility+ session. Then also touch passing a soccer ball back and forth while also doing that Agility+ session. I trained a Police Tactical Response officer by having him perform NeuroTracker while standing in ice cold water to prime him to block out pain and to maintain his tactical and situational awareness. Also Australian Kendo athletes who performed NeuroTracker in their full kit, with the bars on their helmets causing difficulty tracking the balls when they were out of view.

Takeaways

In the second part of this blog I will move onto the creative and social triggers of flow, and cover how NeuroTracker works great for these too. Here are the key takeaways for this part.

1. Flow is a positive performance state of mind that can get you into the growth zone of continuous personal development.
2. NeuroTracker is a great example of a neurotechnology that is flexible and effective at triggering states of flow in many ways.
3. No matter what your performance goals are, dual-tasks can be used to activate flow to develop your specific skill needs to potentially any level.

In the meantime, if you'd like to read more about my own personal development journey, check out my earlier blog.

Boosting Your Brain's Processing Capacity

Or if you want to learn more about psychological techniques for accessing flow for competitive sports performance, read this practical guide by a pro hockey goalie.

How to Achieve a State of Flow

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New to NeuroTracker? Find out what our latest NeuroTrackerX platform has to offer to accelerate your path to improvement.

Announcing NeuroTrackerX!

Thirteen years ago, I worked on a project with the training and doctrine command. The goal was to better understand the human dimension and optimize human military performance on what we now call the multi-domain battlefield. The simple question was ‘How do we make them perform better?” It became clear then and is still the case, that the biggest threat to operational readiness comes from drops in the cognitive performance capacities of our personnel.  

Here I will present the case that advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology have provided us with the capability to reliably measure and monitor the cognitive status of warfighters. And secondly, that this capability needs to be implemented at an institutional level to raise the effective reliability of personnel to the same, or similar, standards as we have in place for our machines and equipment.

The Machine Standard of Operational Readiness

Whenever we go into an operation or a daily mission, we need to know the operational readiness of our equipment. For example, for a tank, we have detailed checklists to ensure it performs how we need it to. Essentially the same checks and maintenance systems apply to any type of machine or equipment that poses a liability if it doesn’t perform as intended when needed.

We understand these machines because we have designed them with the capability to read and interpret their operating specs. Consequently, we maintain a high standard of operational readiness, where the risk of breakdowns, equipment malfunctions, and so on, are minimized to acceptable levels. However, for the human that’s going to operate the tank, we really have nothing in place. The plan is that we can fundamentally create the same operational readiness standards for humans as we have for machines.

The Human Standard of Operational Readiness

While the Army has health-related manuals and reporting systems, there is no manual that assesses the operational readiness of the human system like there is for the equipment they operate. Currently, we know much more about the ability of our machines to perform than we do about the soldiers.

Once a soldier goes into a live field mission, we simply expect that they are ready to accomplish the operation. The only readiness report we have is to explain why certain people aren’t available. We don’t have systems in place to reliably assess our soldiers’ cognitive operational readiness.

This creates significant and undesirable liabilities for the overall success of any mission. For example, we know that sleep deprivation can be a major threat to performance. Due to variability from one person to another in circadian rhythm and mental tolerance, sleep deprivation can have mild to dramatic impacts on cognitive function depending on the warfighter. You can imagine that in a scenario where a squad has sleep deprivation, the squad leader knows that some personnel will be a liability, but not to the degree this cognitive injury will impact the soldier’s decision-making abilities. This becomes even more important at the command levels where cognitive performance outweighs physical performance.

Having to accept this unpredictable factor of warfighters, which also limits the strategic and tactical decision-making opportunities their leaders can make, is a real problem. Furthermore, with the rapid and continuous mechanization, computerization, and automization of the systems supporting our forces, the decisions and actions that warfighters take are becoming an escalating liability in terms of the consequences of poorly made decisions.

The Human Challenge

Since we didn’t design humans, they are a much more complex system to understand than machines. Unlike our equipment, a human has many factors that change with age, environment, mindsets, and so on. The development of a holistic readiness rating for a soldier is naturally a daunting task.

The key requirements to meet are that we first need to baseline our personnel cognitively, and secondly evaluate the realistic limits of their performance. We don’t currently do that; it’s really only basic physiological and psychological checks. This means we don’t measure any other capability requirements we have, such as the individuals’ belief systems that introduce significant biases into our decision-making processes. Yet at the same time, we recognize that all our military personnel are going to change over time.

The key to this approach is the need for neurotechnology, human sensor technology, and advanced big data algorithms that can capture and assess a soldier’s operational readiness for that day’s missions. More holistic programs for managing human military performance are needed – a comprehensive toolbox of practical assessments.

The Solution

The key question is how do we measure cognitive operational readiness? Well, as we know, advances in neurotechnologies, biometric sensors, and so on, have blossomed in the last ten years. We can take advantage of these systems.  

Current technologies like those used with the Oura Ring for sleep and activity ratings or Cerego for foundational knowledge retention are good examples that validate the operational readiness concept. There are many neurotechnologies now on the market that provide real assessment value.

As a role model example, I have found NeuroTracker to be instrumental for rapid and accurate baselines or-on-the spot assessments of visuo-spatial awareness, which can be critical for predicting the outcomes of certain battlefield operations. We can take rapid and objective measurements of that ability within five minutes, whenever needed in the field. For instance, this could be a highly pertinent data point for assigning drivers or pilots to specific mission roles.

As well as having a high standard of scientific validation, this particular neurotechnology has the benefit of actively enhancing the cognitive abilities of individuals who have become suboptimal. In this way, it becomes a performance diagnostic that, if used regularly, provides robust performance enhancement of core cognitive functions.

The Implementation

To encapsulate the methodology and practical solutions that can be implemented with today’s military forces, I am currently writing a Preventative Maintenance Checks and Services (PMCS) manual for holistic operational readiness. This incorporates three assessment domains - the physical domain, the cognitive domain, and the belief systems domain.

The manual is the first attempt to develop a system to capture and report human readiness for that day’s mission.  A daily mission includes operational missions, education events, training events, sustainment/maintenance events, and other tasks that need to be performed daily.  Since a human must operate every day, the manual will outline the specific daily assessments that are both needed and feasible for given situations.  

A cognitive PMCS approach can be very effective for quickly conducting a battery of assessments selected for the specific skills that need to be assessed.

The Evolution

The true power of these emerging neurotechnologies is the data that comes from them for reporting. This can build up into potentially meaningful analysis within short timescales. For example, if we have 1,000 or more daily reports from our personnel, we can start real data mining. This data can be evaluated to find ways to generate algorithms to effectively speed the up assessments of specific performance requirements, for instance. It can also be applied to cross-sectional data analysis across various assessments.

Separately, each neurotechnology provides us with specific performance readiness assessments. However, collectively, these data points will have synergy which will yield much more advanced measures for purposely integrated assessments.

The key concept is that once these types of cognitive measures are implemented, those measures will be in a state of constant evolution and improvement in their overall assessment capabilities. For this reason, just as they are for the AI movement in general, big data driven algorithms are a key goal for applications of neuroscience.

The Benefits

The human brain is the new frontier in science, and from experience I know that progress is happening at great pace. In terms of the benefits of flexible cognitive assessments, I can envision a wide range of applications.

Take new recruits for instance. They tend to come in at 17 and 18 years old, an age where their frontal lobes haven’t fully developed yet for rational decision-making. We have an opportunity to measure, monitor and shape that development. The result will be a faster maturation period of career development, as well as a new awareness of young soldiers that require guidance or retraining, so that they do not pose risks to their team members.

On a more macroscopic scales, generals could incorporate mass cognitive evaluations into battlefield calculus for improved accuracy in outcome predictions of different mission tactics. Then at a more strategic command level, it would be invaluable to know where military leaders are cognitively on a given day. If, say, general officers had access to these assessments, it would help them or their leaders evaluate them to mitigate the risks of bad decisions. In a risk avoidance equation, a general can get a lot more people killed from suboptimal decisions than a single soldier can.

The Bottom Line

Most generals and sergeant majors understand and manage the physical fitness of their warfighters exceptionally well. But when it comes to the cognitive domain of neuroscience, they know very little. This presents an issue at the institutional level for the acceptance of this kind of human optimization approach.  

A typical criticism is that the cognitive domain cannot be adequately measured. This may have been so a decade ago, and it’s certainly true that it cannot be measured exactly. However, the neurotechnologies that have come out of the golden age of neuroscience will do a very good job of meeting our needs once implemented. Then, once these methods transfer from validation projects and research stages, into the battlefield, military leaders will adopt them quickly, simply because of the intelligence utility they yield at every level of military performance.

The bottom line is that military personnel need to be checked cognitively on a regular basis, and neurotechnologies have now made this feasible. Once applied, the outcome effects will be a heightened level of operational readiness, and a greater awareness of how to adapt human resources for optimal performance on the battlefield. Then driven by big data science, these benefits will only snowball.

An edited version of this article by US Army Brigadier General Pete Palmer (retired) can also be found at Modern Integrated Warfare.

You can listen to General Palmer explain operational readiness in an exclusive interview with NeuroTracker here.

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At NeuroTracker we’re proud to have top human performance leaders from all sorts of fields give their 2 cents in our blogs. From an MMA neuroscience coach to the world’s leading expert in visual perception, here are our 7 most insightful Expert Corner blogs of 2020 – enjoy!

1. A Deep Dive Into the Athletic Brain with Professor Faubert

The scientific mastermind behind NeuroTracker, Professor Faubert is continuously engaged in cutting-edge research into how the brain truly ticks when it encounters the demands of the real-world.

This blog takes highlights from probably the best neuroscience sports podcast this year, hosted by Goalie Hacks Founder and pro hockey goalie Mike Santaguida. You can also listen to the podcast for free in the link below – prepare to have your mind blown!

A Deep Dive Into the Athletic Brain with Professor Faubert

2. Harnessing the Athletic Brain

Dr. Roman Velasquez is an MMA coach who lies somewhere between maverick and genius. As a neurobiological neuroscientist with a doctorate in leadership as a ‘Combat Sports Brain Performance Coach’, he is the founder of Neuro Peak Performance.

In this fantastic blog, Dr. Roman Velasquez takes a deep dive into how the brain functions in combat sports, and reveals the enormous demands on mental processing. He then explains the secrets to training these systems for next level sports performance.

Harnessing the Athletic Brain

3. How Can We Make Our Brains Better?

Rob Gronbeck is the quintessential cognitive sports coach and founder of the Brain Room. With limitless zeal, he constantly pushes the boundaries of performance with the very latest neurotechnologies. He has a legendary reputation with the NeuroTracker team for being not only a veteran NeuroTracker coach, but a disciple of the technology for training his own abilities through close to 1,000 sessions.

In this piece Rob presents a unique perspective on ‘the growth zone’, explaining the methodology for achieving an ongoing improvement in mental performance, along with evidence to back it up. This blog is relevant to literally anyone who wants to surpass their current abilities.

How Can We Make Our Brains Better?

4. Unlocking Athletic Potential During COVID-19

Julien Southon is a sports performance coach based in France. A true interdisciplinary coach, he fosters professional talent across many sports, including rally driving. When COVID-19 lockdowns began, he was the first NeuroTracker professional take proactive action to deliver effective remote training for his clients.

Here Julien covers the challenges that athletes have faced, and reveals from his own experience how remote cognitive training can play an incredibly valuable role, both for maintaining performance, and for psychological support.

Unlocking Athletic Potential During COVID-19

5. A Window into the World of Rodeo Performance

Zac Bourgeois is a national youth US rodeo champion turned professional. A rising young star in the rodeo world, he is a true athlete in every sense of the word, with a seemingly unshakable courage for taming a 2000 pound rampant animal.

Every now and again, an expert writes for NeuroTracker in a way that gives a whole new perspective on human performance. For example, in Zac’s words, rodeo is actually a lot like ballet! Here he also tells the story of his own recovery against all odds from a very severe brain injury, all the way back into the saddle.

A Window into the World of Rodeo Performance

6. Introducing NeuroTracker for Golfing Performance

Jordan Fuller is a professional golf coach specialized in nurturing young talent, with a focus on the mental aspects of the game. He is also a prolific writer of guides to the technical aspects of golf.

In this blog he introduces and reviews NeuroTracker for the golfing world. Working from the broad benefits of this form of cognitive training, he then takes a more in-depth look at how training between the ears can provide a pivotal advantage for specific demands of the sports.

Introducing NeuroTracker for Golfing Performance

7. Getting Into the Mental Game of Sports Performance

Kristen Campbell was a NCAA Div 1 Ice Hockey Goaltender for Wisconsin Badgers with an extremely impressive list of accomplishments at the NCAA level.

In this blog she provides great insights into using NeuroTracker for her personal training, explaining how exactly the training raised her game and played a pivotal role in achieving numerous outstanding player of the year awards. If you’re an athlete looking to raise your game from home, this is a must-read.

Getting Into the Mental Game of Sports Performance

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In recent years neuroscience has taken a keen interest in eSports. It seems that gamers' brains are quite special, and understanding why, may provide answers to the broader nature of the human mind. In this blog we’ll take a look at a brand-new eSports study by neuroscientists who used NeuroTracker as their microscope into the grey matter of both pro gamers and casual gamers.

Gaming Experience Versus Expertise

Many past studies have found that video game players are better than non-players in many cognitive domains, with some of the top elite players having supercharged brains. However, until now, video gaming research has mainly classified players according to how many hours of play they have completed, rather than focusing on video game expertise. Though not as much as pro gamers, casual gamers can still rack-up a substantial amount of gaming hours. So a key question is, how does gamer experience weigh-up against expertise?

The Neuropsychological Profile of Gamers

Funded by a Canadian science grant, 4 neuroscientists and eSports experts from different universities collaborated to pit the pros against everyday gamers on a series of neuropsychological tests and NeuroTracker. The paper, titled ‘The neuropsychological profile of professional action video game players’, was published this week. NeuroTracker was selected because of its unique ability to measure the functional neuroplasticity of the gamers, through their capacity to learn and adapt to this 3D multiple object tracking task.

A previous landmark paper which featured on the homepage of Nature.com, demonstrated that NeuroTracker’s scores clearly classified elite from amateur athletes across multiple sports. This was revealed in their superior learnings over 15 sessions – the elite athletes not only started off faster, they also improved faster. This new gaming study took a similar approach, to sees if the pros had the same kind of edge.

Being Put to the Test

The pro gamer group was composed of 14 grandmasters of the popular eSports game called Overwatch - a fast paced first person shooter (FPS). 16 casual gamers were selected who had also played FPS games for up to 20 hours per week, for at least the last 6 months. The next step was to use a battery of tests to see if any actual brain functions differed between the groups. After completing demographics and video game experience questionnaires, the following cognitive abilities were assessed.

• 15 NeuroTracker tests for attention and functional neuroplasticity

• WMS-III spatial span test for visual working memory

• WAIS-IV visual puzzles test for perceptual reasoning and perceptual manipulation

• WAIS-IV coding test for speed of processing

• WAIS-IV digit span test for auditory short-term and working memory

• D-KEFS towers test for executive function and planning

• D-KEFS color-word interference test for executive function, inhibition and task switching

• Grooved Pegboard eye-hand coordination test of perceptual motor-skill dexterity

What Was Found

One of the biggest differences between the pros and the amateurs was found in visual spatial memory, with a large performance advantage for the elites. The also had a significant edge in their selective and sustained attention, along with auditory working memory. This showed that these cyber athletes can perceive and process aspects of what they see and hear at a higher level than their novice counterparts.

Then across the other tests, the pros generally showed advantages, but with less significant differences. One surprising takeaway, is that results on the neuropsychological tests were almost completely uncorrelated with gaming experience across both groups. Expertise trumped over experience in terms of how strongly related it was to these brain functions.

The NeuroTracker data provided a deeper window into the brain, because it measured how the gamer’s brains adapted with training over time. The first few sessions showed that the pros had around a 50% advantage in their baselines. These scores represent speed thresholds, so the elites showed a hugely superior abilities used to track many different targets moving dynamically in 3D space, at the same time.

Interestingly, the training over time did not allow the amateurs to catch up the difference. Instead, as the amateurs got better day by day, the pros improved at an equal or slightly greater rate. This is similar to what was found previously between elite and amateur athletes, though the sports stars showed an even larger learning capacity than cyber stars.

Wired to Perform

This study discovered that eSports professionals have a cognitive edge across the board, and greatly superior abilities when it comes to NeuroTracker’s 3D multiple object tracking demands. This suggests their exceptional skills on the virtual battlefields are closely tied to brains that are overlocked to perform – and that NeuroTracker is sensitive at measuring this. However, future longitudinal research is now needed to investigate if this advantage in mental prowess is due to nature or nurture.

If you're are interested in finding out more about the fascinating world of eSports, then check out this blog.

4 Blogs on Why eSports are Impressive

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