Sport and the Brain: Why it matters
In common beliefs there is a distinctions between sporting and intellectual prowess. The media and
others feel comfortable maligning the accents, language and intelligence of many sports stars in a
way that would be deemed unacceptable for people in many other walks of life. Leaving aside the
offensive and self satisfied cultural snobberies behind these attitudes, they betray ignorance of how
hard it is to achieve sporting excellence and of how elite sporting performance is dependent on
extremely high levels of cognitive functioning in the short and long term. I will present an argument
that sport, with perhaps one other occupation, is the hardest thing that our brain achieves. The
challenges to the brain of an athlete include learning, execution under pressure, real and immediate
consequences, long term stress and sacrifice, and a short professional career, among others.
Sporting elites present us with an opportunity to study brains that have operated under extreme
circumstances for long periods of time. My goal will be to show the importance of the brain in sport,
to show ways in which studying sporting elites can contribute to cognitive neuroscience and to
suggest ways of using cognitive neuroscience to enhance sporting performance.
Professor of Human Brain Research and Royal Society Industry Research Fellow. Prof Walsh is an
expert in sensory and cognitive neuroscience who applies his skills widely in the arts, industry and
sports environments: “Passing tests in the lab is easy. Doing something that passes tests in the real
world is much harder” he says. His current research interests include elite performance, sleep,
creativity, tinnitus and new methods of human brain stimulation.