{"id":1055,"date":"2019-10-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/headstart-why-neuroscience-promises-to-be-a-game-changer-for-elite-sport\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:28","slug":"headstart-neuroscience-gamechanger-elite-sport","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/headstart-neuroscience-gamechanger-elite-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"Headstart: Why Neuroscience Promises to Be a Game-Changer for Elite Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n Oct 10, 2019 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Headstart: Why Neuroscience Promises to Be a Game-Changer for Elite Sport<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Human Performance<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/headstart-neuroscience-gamechanger-elite-sport\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n
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In this third instalment, Optios touches upon brain plasticity and how it can be harnessed by elite athletes to rewire and upgrade their brains.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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An article brought to you in association with our Partners Optios:<\/p>\n

\"Optios<\/p>\n

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Optios, formerly The Platypus Institute is a pioneering leader in the field of maximizing elite-level sports performance based on neurocognitive assessments and has extensive experience working with coaches and athletes. For more information click <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The legendary baseball player and manager Yogi Berra<\/a>, who was world-renowned for his humorous \u201cYogi-isms\u201d once quipped, “Baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical.”<\/h4>\n

Coaches and athletes have known for decades that, in sports, most of the game is mental. Historically, the mental aspect of sports has only been psychology-based and has not involved brain science. This is about to change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elite athletes know they’ve got to have their head in the game and stay ‘in the zone’ to win. Today, for the first time in modern history, portable neuroimaging technology (that doesn’t require someone to lie horizontally in an MRI) makes it possible to capture real-time images that illustrate, in vivid color, precisely what the brain is doing when an athlete says, “I’ve got my head in the game and am in the zone.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just like muscles get stronger using proven methods in the gym, the latest proven neuroscience takes the guesswork out of training and strengthening an athlete’s brain. Neuroperformance combines three things: <\/span>applied neuroscience<\/span><\/a>, state-of-the-art <\/span>neurocognitive assessments<\/span><\/a>, and elite sports performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We can use proven neuroscience technology to rewire the brain, so it gets faster and so that athletes can be in the zone on a regular basis,” <\/span>David Bach<\/span><\/a>, MD, who is the CEO and founder of Optios, said in a recent interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Bach, who founded Optios in 2016, grew up in a family of scientists. As he explains, “My dad is the guy who invented bone marrow transplantation; my mom was a famous biochemist. I grew up surrounded by the world of science and the scientific method. Not surprisingly, after college, I became a scientist and physician. I attended and worked at Harvard Medical School \u2014 and spent a lot of my early years in laboratories \u2014 looking at cells, looking at data, reading scientific journals, and hanging out with research scientists.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The importance of rigorous science was drummed into Bach’s head from a young age. “My parents taught me: Never believe what people tell you. Never believe common wisdom. Investigate and do your own research. Look at the raw data. Form your own hypotheses and test those hypotheses,” he says. “This way of thinking has permeated my life \u2014 and has had a huge impact on me, for better or for worse.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bach’s lifelong connection to rigorous science combined with a unique passion for human development is a key reason he founded Optios.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s all about having something which is grounded in rigorous scientific methods and strong neuroscience,” he continues. “<\/span>The way we’re doing it at Optios is in a very rigorous scientific fashion. We are doing case studies to show that we can take golfers and take strokes off their game. We can take basketball players and improve their free-throw average.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The applied neuroscience techniques developed by Optios also improve the processing speed needed for a pro cricketer to navigate the ‘corridor of uncertainty’ with grace under pressure or for elite rugby league players to optimize ‘reactive agility’ and perceptual abilities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the last decade or so, one of the most important discoveries in the world of neuroscience is that the brain is plastic and that it continuously rewires and reshapes itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“With the brain plasticity discovery, neuroscientists started to understand that we can actually use technology to induce rewiring in the brain to make it faster and to learn things more quickly,” Bach explains. <\/span><\/p>\n

“We’re actually changing the brain’s performance in a very profound and measurable way. The concept of neuroperformance started in the scientific arena and then moved into the military arena. This type of technology is now migrating its way into the commercial realm. The first and probably the most important place where it’s going to be used is in sports.”<\/span><\/p>\n