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P&P #75: Brain and Sport

The popular application of brain lateralisation theories to sporting performance may be misleading and spurious. Theories of how left-right brain or lateral-vertical thinking processes affect performance in a wide array of fields have been proliferated by numerous entrepreneurs. The emphasis tends to have been on denigrating the role of so-called left-brain, 'logical', mathematical, 'masculine', sequential thinking and extolling the virtues of more right-brain, 'intuitive', 'feminine' thinking in teaching, learning, creative thinking, art and business management.

BACKGROUND AND BELIEFS

Hundreds of books and seminars have appeared on the market, ranging from the New Age type meditative 'Thinking on the Right Side of the Brain', 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' books to the businesslike de Bono 'Lateral Thinking' texts. Almost all of these uncritically associate meditative states or altered states with increases in right-brain processing. Almost all of them imply that logical, sequential thinking invariably leads to a dead-end and diminished creativity. Some of them implicate the mid-brain and its sub-structures in emotive processes and even fewer mention that the cerebellum also involves so-called emotive processing.

Almost none of them make any serious attempt to comment on how ANY mode of neural processing is involved with the production of morality, ethics, altruism and other humanistic/religious behaviours. None of them mentions the probability that Hitler, Stalin and several other irrational, 'artistic', intuitive, musical, non-sequential human monsters should more than likely be categorised as right-brain thinkers. This is not to imply that right brain thinkers are homicidal maniacs, but simply to stress that no one mode of thinking is unarguably superior or inferior to another in all situations.

One has to remember that all of the brain is active all of the time, though to different degrees and in different proportions - this point must never be forgotten when one uses an all-or-none model of left or right brain functioning.

Virtually none of the right-brain theorists refers to research that considerable left-brain processing occur in the brains of musicians (it is well known that musical composition is highly sequential, mathematically precise and logically prescribed according to specific rules).

No definitive studies comparing well-matched left vs right brain or lateral vs vertical thinking models in teaching, learning or creating exist in which well-structured control groups 'compete' over a long term against right and left brain groups (if such purist groups could ever be created). There appears to be no compelling evidence that any one mode of thinking is universally superior to another, yet nations (such as Venezuela) and business groups seem to be falling over backwards to enrol in superior 'lateral' or right-brain training courses. Now sport seems to have been targetted for similar right-brain attention.

Is the apparent success enjoyed by these right-brain or lateral courses merely a consequence that, for the first time, employees or students are using some logically structured approach (paradoxically, these right brain and lateral courses are taught with left brain logical language, left-brain logically sequenced books and lectures and so on! - does nobody seem to detect the inherent contradictions?). Is it not possible that any apparent success of such courses is simply due to the fact that ANY methodical approach is better than a random approach?

THE EXPERIMENTAL FOUNDATIONS

The application of lateralisation models in sports training, competition and learning (as well as in business etc) is based on studies of various laboratory measurements of neural electrical output, blood flow patterns or other distributions of metabolic action (with PET or MRI scans). Higher levels of EEG activity (including brain stem evoked potentials and so on), blood flow or metabolic activity are interpreted to mean that those areas are more active than other less electrically or metabolically active regions.

This interpretation is no doubt logical and correct, but are we entitled to state that processing occurring in a more active region is more crucial than processing taking place in apparently less active areas? Does greater EEG and metabolic activity imply greater CONTENT or CONTROL of processing than apparently more quiescent activity? Is not possible that even small, ephemeral phases or quantities of EEG or metabolic activity are associated with some critical switching, gating or transmission processes? After all, electrical relays or computing units using very small potentials in electrical engineering situations are frequently used to initiate, time or control much greater currents or potentials. Is such a possibility not likely in neural processing, too?

Does increased EEG or metabolic activity (i.e. QUANTITY) imply greater QUALITY or content of processing or crucial processing? How do we know that a great deal of the processing is not simply noise? After all, it was stated years ago that 'the brain is a noisy processor' (was it Ross Ashby or Adey who said this?) - and today we are talking even more confidently of chaos theory, filtered noise and fuzzy logic processing in physiological systems. Are the L-R brain theorists not being led somewhat astray by simplistic dichotomistic interpretations of the data?

Let us consider another analogy. An EMG study of a pianist will show much greater electrical activity in the stabilising muscles of the back and shoulders than in the muscles of the arms and fingers - should we then not deduce that the most relevant and crucial action is in the back of the pianist? Naturally, the stabilising muscles are playing a vital role in allowing the pianist to sit upright for prolonged periods to enable her to use her fingers deftly - but they are not more important to the creation of motor output for the musical performance.

Furthermore, are we really entitled to ignore the possible role of quasi-stationary neural activity, 'DC' potentials, infraslow oscillations of potential (Becker, Aladjalova, Rowland and so on)? What further work has been done regarding the possible relevance of ultrafast rhythms (Trabka: 500 Hz and Nudel: 100 kHz). Early work showed that the cerebellum has a characteristic rhythm of 200-300Hz, superimposed upon which is a low amplitude component of 1000-2000Hz.

Have there been significant advances in the possible role of these and other EEG rhythms and how they correlate with human movement or other processing? Do similar lateralisation phenomena seem to occur for electrical activity outside the normal 0.5 - 30 Hz EEG range commonly studied with respect to sport and human movement?

CONCLUSION

Are we justified in using the experimental results of brain function in the form of simple L-R brain or lateral-vertical thinking models to enhance performance in the acquisition or production of sporting skills? Is the ability of the brain to flip-flop rapidly or even plastically between different processing states not more important than a presumed benefit of relying more dominantly on right-brain governed action? Do the current simplistically structured and commercialised L-R, lateral-vertical brain models really offer greater benefits relative to any other well-structured approaches to training and performance in sport, the classroom or workplace? To put this crudely, are they yet another example of pop sport psychology?


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