Inside An Olympian's Brain

ates his brain cells as if he were doing it. It's a lot like sports training, where trainers have athletes first imagine that they are performing the movements they desire."

It seems these "mental maps" of neurons in the motor cortex are the end goal for athletes to achieve the automaticity required to either repeat the same rehearsed motions (like Phelps and Liukin) or to react instantly to a new situation (like May-Treanor and Dan).  Luckily, we can just practice our own automaticity of sitting on the couch and watching in a mesemerized state.



AJEMIAN, R., GREEN, A., BULLOCK, D., SERGIO, L., KALASKA, J., GROSSBERG, S. (2008). Assessing the Function of Motor Cortex: Single-Neuron Models of How Neural Response Is Modulated by Limb Biomechanics. Neuron, 58(3), 414-428. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2008.02.033

Velliste, M., Perel, S., Spalding, M.C., Whitford, A.S., Schwartz, A.B. (2008). Cortical control of a prosthetic arm for self-feeding. Nature, 453(7198), 1098-1101. DOI: 10.1038/nature06996

 

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?