sports

Sports teams find creative ways to cross-train the brain off-field

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HOW TO TRAIN THE BRAIN: COGNITIVE TRAINING IN LACROSSE (US Lacrosse Magazine):

“Bon­nie Rosen has always been inter­est­ed in find­ing a train­ing method that extends beyond the lacrosse field. That pur­suit has tak­en her beyond the restraints of phys­i­cal train­ing in its entirety.

The Tem­ple women’s lacrosse coach uses vir­tu­al real­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy [Read more…] about Sports teams find cre­ative ways to cross-train the brain off-field

Play sports (smartly) for a quieter brain and better auditory processing

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Ath­letes Have Qui­eter Brains, New Research Shows (Sci News):

“No one would argue against the fact that sports lead to bet­ter phys­i­cal­ly fit­ness, but we don’t always think of brain fit­ness and sports,” said Pro­fes­sor Nina Kraus, direc­tor of the Audi­to­ry Neu­ro­science Lab­o­ra­to­ry at North­west­ern University.

“We’re say­ing that play­ing sports can tune the brain to bet­ter under­stand one’s sen­so­ry envi­ron­ment.” [Read more…] about Play sports (smart­ly) for a qui­eter brain and bet­ter audi­to­ry processing

Study: Strenuous physical exercise may lead to cognitive –not just physical– fatigue

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Too Much Exer­cise Can Tire Our Brains Out, Too (Dis­cov­er Mag­a­zine D‑brief):

“For years, the Nation­al Insti­tute of Sports, Exer­cise and Per­for­mance (INSEP) in France had been study­ing an unusu­al phe­nom­e­non. If an athlete’s work­out reg­i­ments were ramped up, it didn’t always lead to a bet­ter per­for­mance — even if that ath­lete felt like they were work­ing hard­er than before.

The orga­ni­za­tion called this phe­nom­e­non over­reach­ing, and knew what the phys­i­cal symp­toms were. But the orga­ni­za­tion want­ed to know if any symp­toms of fatigue were appear­ing in the brain, too. New research says yes. [Read more…] about Study: Stren­u­ous phys­i­cal exer­cise may lead to cog­ni­tive –not just phys­i­cal– fatigue

“We need low-cost monitoring technologies to track cognitive processes and capabilities at an individual level” — Danny Dankner, CEO and co-founder of Applied Cognitive Engineering

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Dan­ny Dankner

Ques­tion: Dan­ny, please share 1–2 major brain health needs you observe right now whose solu­tion demands a cre­ative and sig­nif­i­cant tech-enabled innovation.

Answer: We need low-cost mon­i­tor­ing tech­nolo­gies to track cog­ni­tive process­es and capa­bil­i­ties at an indi­vid­ual lev­el. This would be crit­i­cal to trace and diag­nose dete­ri­o­rat­ing process­es, espe­cial­ly among the “wor­ried well” and old­er adults.

What advice would you give an entre­pre­neur launch­ing an inno­va­tion to address that?

The same advice I’d give any entre­pre­neur: make sure you address a real need, be focused, short­en devel­op­ment cycles and work as close as pos­si­ble to prospec­tive cus­tomers. Of course you also need to assem­ble a group of capa­ble and con­nect­ed peo­ple which you are com­fort­able work­ing with.

Final­ly, please share some­thing excit­ing you’re work­ing on.

We have been devel­op­ing cog­ni­tive sim­u­la­tion sys­tems to train and improve on-field deci­sion-mak­ing per­for­mance  among com­pet­i­tive foot­ball (“soc­cer” in the US) play­ers, and it’s excit­ing to start to see tan­gi­ble results. For exam­ple, the Cologne Sport Uni­ver­si­ty just released this fas­ci­nat­ing study about the effi­ca­cy of the Foot­ball Intel­li­Gym, led by Prof. Daniel Memmert–the head of the sports cog­ni­tion depart­ment there.

– Dan­ny Dankn­er, a ser­i­al entre­pre­neur, is the CEO and co-founder of Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing Ltd (ACE), a leader in the field of cog­ni­tive train­ing for com­pet­i­tive ath­letes. Pre­vi­ous­ly he was on the found­ing team of Kinet­i­ca Inter­net­ting Solu­tions, and led strate­gic ini­tia­tives at Mobile­S­pear and Scepia Inter­net Solu­tions. Dan­ny is a found­ing mem­ber of Tel Aviv Uni­ver­si­ty’s entre­pre­neur­ship forum and serves as board mem­ber of the Glob­al Entre­pre­neur­ship Net­work Israel. He will serve as a Judge in the first Brainnova­tions Pitch Con­test host­ed by the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th, 2017).

– Brain­no­va­tions Judg­ing Panel

Update: 20 Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

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brain-woman—–

Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter,  pro­vid­ing a win­dow into the ongo­ing brain health and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty revolutions–plus some fun brain teasers. Hap­py read­ing and, for those of you in the USA, Hap­py Fourth of July, and for those of you in Cana­da, Hap­py Cana­da Day!

New research:

New tools:

New thinking:

Finally, some brain teasers:

Sport-specific brain training programs gain adoption in basketball, ice hockey and soccer

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– Elite youth hock­ey play­ers in MN camp. Image cour­tesy of Applied Cog­ni­tive Engineering

Intel­li­Gym Trains The Brain Of An Ath­lete Like A Fight­er Pilot (Sport­Techie):

“Fight­er pilots and peo­ple play­ing team sports have more in com­mon than you may have thought.

In fact, the cog­ni­tive func­tions play­ers need on the soc­cer pitch, the ice rink and the bas­ket­ball court are very sim­i­lar to those fight­er pilots use dur­ing aer­i­al com­bat. [Read more…] about Sport-spe­cif­ic brain train­ing pro­grams gain adop­tion in bas­ket­ball, ice hock­ey and soccer