When we
are pushing ourselves hard, our oxygen demand gets high, we get out of breath
and we (most of us) stop to catch our breath before returning to the
competition, battle or whatever the devilish physiologists are throwing at us
this time.
Top class
athletes, apart from being better at their sport than the rest of us, will push
themselves harder. It is the old saw about when the going gets tough, the tough
get going, supposedly. So what is it about their brain activity that gives them
that edge?
Paulus et al have made a start at sorting this out in a recent experimental study (1). Their
lab rats consisted of 10 world class adventure racers who combine orienteering with
severe cross country running at the elite level. Both men and women were
selected and their average age was 37.5. A similar size, mixed gender control
group were selected from healthy individuals with an average age of 36.6.
The
participants lay with their head in the big magnet for fMRI studies while their breathing was restricted. They had to breath through a hose with sintered
bronze filters. This would put a similar mental load as extreme exercise,
without the pain in the legs, of course. However, to challenge the brain/body
coordination, the participants had to play a computer game of pressing a button
in repose to things happening on a screen.
The result
of all the hard work is that the right insula of the elite athletes activity
was less than with the control subjects. The significance is that effects of
emotions like fear and awareness of risk were lower, or suppressed with the
elite athletes.
We use
this side of the brain for approximate estimations and working on novel
situations. It appears that attenuation of the activity might mean less
imagination, and thus not imagining the bad results of pushing oneself to the
limits. My imagination encourages me to stop for a cup of tea and sympathy when
things get too hard and, I suspect, I'm in the majority.
