March 1, 2018
New York Times contributor Schonbrun takes readers on a sometimes-tangled but revealing tour of the minds of winning athletes.A baseball player at bat has a few milliseconds to decide whether to swing at a pitch. Some of that decision will hinge on experience, on the neural pathways telling the batter that this is the sort of thing the eye has seen and the brain has processed before. But in the end, the heavy lifting is being done in the fusiform gyrus, the part of the brain that "picks up baseballs like bird-watchers spot a warbler in the bush," or other parts of the brain that govern perceptions and especially the timing of our responses to them. Schonbrun's principals in his sometimes-science-thick, sometimes-jock-talky narrative are tasked with scouting and training promising athletes. This is no easy matter, especially given that neuro-training, so to speak, isn't something that coaches and managers have adapted themselves to--yet. But more, they and other sports-oriented neuroscientists are "tracing the essential correlates of a skill," using imaging and scientific method alike to chase down the ineffable--e.g., the workings of the mind of a star athlete like, say, Stephen Curry, who "was considered to be too slow-footed and unathletic by scouts that many teams passed on him in the NBA draft." In studying anticipation, decision, and response, some scientists fall back on the old notion that it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at something, which occasions a problem. "No one has any idea why it takes so long," Schonbrun writes, "because no one knows what it actually means to be skilled." But even so, researchers are constantly gaining insight, and their findings are likely to figure prominently in how athletes are recruited and trained for optimal performance in the future.It's not quite in the same league as Moneyball, but readers interested in the applications of neuroscience to everyday life will find plenty of value here.
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April 15, 2018
Journalist Schonbrun (New York Times) investigates how and why some athletes perform better than others. The book begins with baseball; specifically, the research of two men and their deCervo device that can detect the moment a hitter decides to swing or take the pitch thrown toward him. Schonbrun then moves on to cover many different research theories related to sports science, including neuroscientists studying how superior athletes experience less "noise" or distraction. Without noise, each time a human performed motion, it could be perfectly repeated over time. Instead, noise allows for small inconsistencies in movement that alter the result. Also discussed are old adages such as muscle memory, which the author maintains does not exist. Instead, the neural pathway that leads to the series of motion becomes more stable and the information travels faster in the brain without noise. More topics covered involve neurotech; robotics and the mimicking of human movement; and specific studies on stars such as Tom Brady, Steph Curry, and Serena Williams. VERDICT Some background in science and sporting knowledge will be helpful but is not essential. Fans of sport science, sport psychology, robotics, and neuroscience will find this to be informative and inspiring.--Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 15, 2018
To understand why Jos� Altuve performs so well on the diamond, or why Tom Brady excels on the gridiron, don't look at these sports superstars' arms, hands, legs, or eyes. Examine their brains. Poised to guide the sophisticated sports fan in such examination, Schonbrun lucidly explains the fascinating new world of neuroathletics. Under Schonbrun's tutelage, readers learn how an electroencephalogram (or EEG) exposes the neural markers of a great hitter, how transcranial magnetic stimulation illuminates the brain's process for updating the mental spatial map of a winning quarterback. Naturally, such neuroscience matters not only to intelligent fans but also to team managers, coaches, and athletes themselves. In the march of neuroscience?from ancient Egyptian medical treatments for head injuries to twenty-first-century techniques for transcranial direct-current stimulation?readers will recognize the emergence of stunning future possibilities for assessing and perfecting the performance of athletes (Schonbrun's prime concern) as well as musicians and dancers. The stereotype of the dumb jock may not survive this explosive jolt!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)