Neurotechnology for Sport

  Mental fatigue induced by sports affects brain functions, especially cognitive processing ability. This study discusses the importance of managing mental fatigue in athletes today. While the factors involved in high pressure sport, (particularly at a more competitive level) are unavoidable, techniques in the management of athletes are often employed to help offset some mental fatigue and maintain health and performance. Currently when we look at high performance sport, athletes across the board are facing higher workload seasons, more games, more commitments associated with their sport, and less access to support networks or family and friends due to more frequent travel. Athletes thi s  year have faced unusual and stressful circumstances with the current pandemic and while travel may have been reduced, they face the stress and uncertainty of canceled competitions, qualifiers and reduced access to facilities and coaches. The capacity required to self motivate though such cir...

There is a time and place for every training intervention. With physical training you can actually p l an for too much load for a short time in order to create adaptation. The same applies for cognitive training, where you must put the athlete into levels of high stress and high fatigue to create adaptations in the brain.  The athlete must become comfortable at being uncomfortable and going beyond their limit.  Of course this must be placed into a proper structured plan.  The important point here is to understand that all training sessions should not always be perfect.  Athletes can fall into the “perfection trap” where they are afraid of jeopardising training or performance even if it means long term gains later on.  There MUST be times that training sessions should be performed in a sub-optimal psychological or physiological state.  We can never guarantee that competition will be possible in perfect mental and physical condition so we must prepare our ath...

Brain Endurance Training is NEURAL CAPACITY TRAINING Mental fatigue impacts our perception of effort which will in turn decrease our mental and physical capacity. The higher our perceived effort, the less access we have to our physical and mental reserves. No matter how well trained or elite we are. This therefore creates a detrimental knock on effect to performance. Additionally, it has also been shown that  mental fatigue   decreases prefrontal oxygenation  which will also limit our capacity. Brain Endurance Training (BET) can alter prefrontal oxygenation Reductions in prefrontal oxygenation can limit human performance Brain Endurance Training (BET) can alter prefrontal oxygenation Reductions in prefrontal oxygenation can limit human performance medium.com Brain Endurance Traini n g (BET)  summed up in once sentence is, “neural capacity training”  If you peel back all the layers the goal is always the same, overload the brain to create adaptation to increase y...

  Cognitive training for the prevention of skill decay in surgeons. Staying sharp and ready in any high performance environment is imperative. When the stakes are high, there is often not time to get a few practice rounds in before the main event. Over time skills can decline without regular mental practice and it has been shown that cognitive training can be of critical importance. High performing environments are not only thos e  related to sports. If you have the experience of being under the knife, you know the importance of trusting the surgeon and their mental sharpness. Surgeons are at times standing, concentrating and working for hours on end, without breaks and at odd times of the night. Some are required to think quickly and clearly in an emergency. Those with such heavy mental demands need the mental capacity to remain sharp and focused, the consequences of mistakes are high. Cognitive training  has been shown to be an effective tool for performance improvement...