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Speaker 1: Guess what, mango, what's that? Well, so you remember a

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Speaker 1: couple of years after we got out of school and

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Speaker 1: the book Moneyball came out, and we were both fascinated

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Speaker 1: by the premise. The basic idea was that the way

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Speaker 1: so called experts were thinking about evaluating player performance was

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Speaker 1: you know, seriously flawed and certainly very subjective at the least.

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Speaker 1: And and I mean this wasn't just commentators and players.

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Speaker 1: I mean this was scouts, coaches, nearly everyone. And that

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Speaker 1: is until a few clubs, and especially the Oakland a

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Speaker 1: started taking a much more analytical approach to how teams

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Speaker 1: should be assembled, as they started looking at stats that

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Speaker 1: had really kind of been ignored before or at least

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Speaker 1: had taken a back seat, so things like on base

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Speaker 1: percentage instead of batting average. Yeah, it was super interesting.

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Speaker 1: And if I'm remembering correctly, like in those years that

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Speaker 1: the A's made it to the playoffs, they were actually

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Speaker 1: spending far less than half of what the Yankees were

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Speaker 1: spending on their entire club. It really was incredible and

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Speaker 1: just super interesting to see how quickly that much more

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Speaker 1: analytical approach made its way into other sports like basketball. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was well, now there's a new field that looks

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Speaker 1: like it could significantly change sports again, at least according

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Speaker 1: to the author of a new book called The Performance Cortex,

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Speaker 1: how neuroscience is redefining athletic genius. And today we're lucky

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Speaker 1: enough to be joined by the author of that book,

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Speaker 1: Zach Sewan Brunn. He'll talk to us about why brains

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Speaker 1: of certain great athletes like Steph Curry and Serena Williams

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Speaker 1: and Tom Brady are just so different. Because while they're

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Speaker 1: obviously an incredible shape and have spent countless hours working

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Speaker 1: on their craft, we know there's more to it than that.

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Speaker 1: How does a great hitter master the timing of drilling

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Speaker 1: a nine fastball? How did great shooters manage to make

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Speaker 1: half of their three pointers? And how does a great

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Speaker 1: quarterback make such split second decisions with a bunch of

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Speaker 1: guys twice their size coming in for the kill. So

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Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about today. Let's dive in. Hey,

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Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will

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Speaker 1: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend

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Speaker 1: Manguesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof

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Speaker 1: glass holding a tennis racket in one hand as he

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Speaker 1: handles the control panel, and the other that's our friend

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Speaker 1: and producer Tristan McNeil. Yeah, he's been watching Serena Williams

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Speaker 1: videos all morning, just trying to match her reaction time

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Speaker 1: on service. Then he's getting pretty good. Actually, it's impressive. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's time to sit down, Tristan. It's time to time

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Speaker 1: to get focused here. So all right, Mago. As we

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Speaker 1: mentioned at the top of the show, we're thrilled to

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Speaker 1: be joined by the author of a new book called

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Speaker 1: The Performance Cortex. How neuroscience is redefining athletic genius And

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Speaker 1: as the book says, it's not about the million dollar

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Speaker 1: arm anymore, It's about the million dollar brain. Zach Sean Bren,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius. Thanks guys, thanks for having

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Speaker 1: me so Zach, I know you've mentioned that the inspiration

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Speaker 1: for this book came after your wife pointed you to

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Speaker 1: this article about two neuroscientists working in Major League Baseball.

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Speaker 1: Can you talk about what these guys were looking for

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Speaker 1: and how this all sent you down a rabbit hole

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Speaker 1: on this topic. Yeah, yeah, it was very serendipitous. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I had been loving through an alumni magazine

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Speaker 1: and and my wife had been with me, and she

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Speaker 1: noticed the small little blurb about these two Columbia University

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Speaker 1: neuroscientists that were, as you said, they were starting to

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Speaker 1: work in in with Major League Baseball kind of as

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Speaker 1: a consulting basis, and they were still finishing up their

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Speaker 1: their own neuroscience research at at Columbia. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm a sportswriter. I had heard a little bit about

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Speaker 1: brain gaming and cognitive training in sports, and obviously mindfulness

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Speaker 1: and things like sports psychologists have been around for a while,

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Speaker 1: but neuroscience seemed a little different to me, you know.

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Speaker 1: And they were using uh, neuroscience imaging technique called e g.

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Speaker 1: Electro and cephalogram to actually figurtively peel back to the

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Speaker 1: skull and see what underneath the helmets of these hitters

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Speaker 1: and how their brains are responding two pitches. Teams were

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Speaker 1: really interested in this information, not just for a training

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Speaker 1: purposes in terms of maybe getting hitters to improve their

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Speaker 1: decision making at swinging at fastballs or curveballs or sliders,

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Speaker 1: but also perhaps as a scouting method figuring out, you know, okay,

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Speaker 1: what might be a baseline for what the reaction time

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Speaker 1: of a major league or needs to be. You can

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Speaker 1: then kind of fit other prospects or or screen for

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Speaker 1: for future players based on that kind of baseline. And

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Speaker 1: so it really presented this kind of new frontier in analytics,

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Speaker 1: which is obviously a big topic because this was not

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Speaker 1: so much a performance training device but an analysis tool

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Speaker 1: that was that was very unique. It was interesting hearing

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Speaker 1: you talk about, you know, the two m VP front

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Speaker 1: runners in the American League last year. You've got jose

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Speaker 1: Al Tove, who is when I think, like five ft

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Speaker 1: six and maybe a hundred and sixty five pounds, and

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Speaker 1: then you've got Aaron Judge, who's well over six ft

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Speaker 1: six six ft seven or so two eighty two pounds,

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Speaker 1: and they're both great players. But if you look at

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Speaker 1: the two of them, you know, you you wouldn't know

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Speaker 1: exactly what makes the two of them great because they

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Speaker 1: look so different and obviously there is something different happening

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Speaker 1: in their brain. And it's just interesting to me that

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Speaker 1: this hasn't really been looked at before. Well, why do

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Speaker 1: you think this isn't something that's been written about or

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Speaker 1: or researched as much previously. Well, I mean, if you

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Speaker 1: remember Moneyball, if remember the movie money Ball, and you

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Speaker 1: remember the scouts talking of even back then about scouting

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Speaker 1: players based on the good face, right and and you

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Speaker 1: know what the guy was cancering where the guy had

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Speaker 1: a girlfriend and uh and that was going to predict

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Speaker 1: and I'll predict how they would turn out to be

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Speaker 1: a major league players. And I was kind of laughed

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Speaker 1: about in the movie. And some of that has changed

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Speaker 1: with still so much of scouting and analytics. In fact,

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Speaker 1: all of scouting an analytics to this point is all

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Speaker 1: post talc narratives that are put together after the guy

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Speaker 1: swings or you know, or a dozen't swing and takes

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Speaker 1: a walk, and now those stats are compiled from there,

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Speaker 1: so you know, these guys were doing something that was

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Speaker 1: obviously occurring before any pitch reached home plate um. And

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Speaker 1: I think you know what has taken some time for

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Speaker 1: for teams to wrap their head around about this kind

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Speaker 1: of technology is there's not quite enough data yet for

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Speaker 1: them to say whether or not it's it's you know,

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Speaker 1: useful to them. They they care about winning games. They

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Speaker 1: don't want to put their players um through a lot

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Speaker 1: of rigor. And you know these sorts of science, this

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Speaker 1: sorts of analysis, it takes time. You know, you have

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Speaker 1: to wear any e g. Cap for forty minutes clicking

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Speaker 1: on a laptop keyboard, and you know, it's not something

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Speaker 1: that players obviously want to spend a lot of time doing,

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Speaker 1: especially if they're not even convinced that this is going

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Speaker 1: to help them. You know, coming away from this and

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Speaker 1: spending time with with Jason and Jordan's, I have no

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Speaker 1: doubt that this type of technologies it's as it continues

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Speaker 1: to get easier and easier to use, it's going to

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Speaker 1: be more and more prevalent in in sports. Speaking of

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Speaker 1: a of a different Jordan, I was actually in high

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Speaker 1: school in the Birmingham area when Michael Jordan was playing

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Speaker 1: for the White Sox double A team the Birmingham Barons then,

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Speaker 1: and of course it was you know, a ton of

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Speaker 1: hype around him being there, and it was a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun to go see these games and you're talking

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Speaker 1: about one of the greatest athletes and one of the

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Speaker 1: greatest competitors of all time. But it never quite clicked,

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Speaker 1: you know, on the on the hitting front. And I

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Speaker 1: don't know what we all expected, but you know, it

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Speaker 1: was just interesting to see that it didn't quite come

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Speaker 1: together in that way. And so would you say this

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Speaker 1: probably did have something to do with you know, obviously

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Speaker 1: there had been a lack of training over so many years,

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, did he not quite have

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Speaker 1: that thing or whatever that brain factor is to to

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Speaker 1: have become the hitter he was hoping to be. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's exactly right. And I mean this story of

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Speaker 1: Michael Jordan as a baseball player has always been remembered,

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Speaker 1: as you kind of said, it's kind of an embarrassment

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Speaker 1: and a failure. And and I actually think that's really

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Speaker 1: not not the case, and and and probably not fair.

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Speaker 1: He certainly had the athleticism. He had he had the

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Speaker 1: tools physically to become a a superstar in baseball obviously.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he was the greatest afflete in the world.

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Speaker 1: He had the quick hands, he had the coordination of

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Speaker 1: his legs, and that's probably what enabled him to even

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Speaker 1: that two hundred at the double A level, which you know,

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Speaker 1: again that to me is incredible. Uh. And and that

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Speaker 1: should not be perceived as a failure but really more

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Speaker 1: of a marvel. But what he didn't have was what

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Speaker 1: Jason and Jordan are studying, that he didn't have the

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Speaker 1: decision making ability in his brain, the the regions of

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Speaker 1: his brain that are necessary for hitting. Through studies, we've

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Speaker 1: sort of gotten a bit of a clue into what

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Speaker 1: regions might be necessary for hitting. Those regions had not

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Speaker 1: been exercised in that way in in a dozen years,

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Speaker 1: and in that in that short amount of time that

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Speaker 1: one summer, they weren't going to be exercised enough for

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Speaker 1: him to uh for him to make the Major League. Well,

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Speaker 1: I always think the same thing, that is just stunning

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Speaker 1: that he was able to walk into a different sport

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Speaker 1: and compete even at that level. It's it's pretty incredible.

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Speaker 1: But could you talk a little more specifically about what

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Speaker 1: brain regions are crucial for baseball players. Motor studies are

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Speaker 1: just inherently difficult to do if you're not taking a

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Speaker 1: hitter and putting them into a batting cage. But they

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Speaker 1: do try and simulate what it's like to be hitting

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Speaker 1: a pitch, or at least responding to a pitch via

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Speaker 1: a video game simulation. And they were able to stick

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Speaker 1: several Columbia University baseball hitters into an m r I

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Speaker 1: and see what was responding in their brains as these

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Speaker 1: pitches were coming. And obviously compare those anomalousies, and they

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Speaker 1: found two brain regions in particular that were of interest

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Speaker 1: and that we're activating or their their their neurons were

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Speaker 1: responding in a way that was different than novices. And

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Speaker 1: the first was the supplementary motor area. This was particularly

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Speaker 1: responsive when the hitters were deciding not the swing. And

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Speaker 1: this made a lot of sense because in other studies

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Speaker 1: involving the supplementary motor area, that region is particularly active

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Speaker 1: in tasks where you have to inhibit your movement, such

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Speaker 1: as when you just might be watching something but you're

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Speaker 1: not you're not supposed to move. And so the fact

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Speaker 1: that these hitters when they're not swinging and their supplementary

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Speaker 1: motor area is lighting up, it's it told the researchers

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Speaker 1: that they're kind of hitters are kind of on a

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Speaker 1: hairpin trigger. You know, they don't have much time to react. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: they have four milliseconds, and if you want to break

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Speaker 1: it down, they actually have less than that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's half an eye blink. Yeah, it's incredible. And

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Speaker 1: so they have to be ready to swing, you know,

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Speaker 1: at at any moment. And so what is it that

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Speaker 1: might separate the good hitters from the not so good hitters,

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Speaker 1: and actually might not be their ability to swing, but

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Speaker 1: it might be their ability to hold off and not swing.

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Speaker 1: And so, um that where the supplementary motor area comes

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Speaker 1: into fla. When the hitters were responding two pitches and

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Speaker 1: we're we're swinging. The other area that that lit up

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Speaker 1: primarily was this place called the fusiform gyrus um, which

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Speaker 1: is part of the fusiform face area. It's involved with face.

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Speaker 1: It's it's been shown another studies to be heavily involved

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Speaker 1: with facial recognition. So when I am scanning a crowd,

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Speaker 1: I can immediately notice my my mother's face in that crowd,

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Speaker 1: you know, instantaneously, because I'm you know, I'm quote unquote

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Speaker 1: an expert in seeing her face right. And so it's

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Speaker 1: been shown in a lot of other studies on expertise,

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Speaker 1: whether it's a bird watchers or far enthusiasts or chess players,

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Speaker 1: that's the region that acts as the trigger to the

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Speaker 1: motor system to jump start in its emotion. Those were

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Speaker 1: primarily the two regions of interest that they found in hitters.

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Speaker 1: And I think intuitively it kind of makes some sense. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it sounds like you have some of those same

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Speaker 1: skills as well. I mean, if Alta can hit a

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Speaker 1: fastball and you're using that same region of the brain

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Speaker 1: to recognize your mom and a crowd, that's really impressive.

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Speaker 1: So congratulations on that. All right, well, I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about my favorite sport. But before we do that,

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Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about the new book, The Performance Cortex, how

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Speaker 1: neuroscience is redefining athletic genius. So Zach, I'm actually eager

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Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about Steph Curry because we're

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Speaker 1: getting towards the end of the basketball season here. It's

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Speaker 1: been an exciting one to watch. Hopefully he comes back

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Speaker 1: from his injury and we'll have a really exciting playoff

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Speaker 1: season to watch. But I do want to talk about

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Speaker 1: him a bit because, you know, you look at two

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Speaker 1: of the greatest basketball players on the planet. You've got

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Speaker 1: Lebron James, who's at six ft eight two fifty pounds,

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Speaker 1: and not to take anything away from his skill, but

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Speaker 1: he's kind of a superhuman build. And then and then

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Speaker 1: you take somebody like Steph Curry, and you know, if

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Speaker 1: you didn't know him, and he just walked into your

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Speaker 1: local pickup game, you wouldn't necessarily know that you were

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Speaker 1: in the presence of maybe the greatest basketball player in

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Speaker 1: the world until you saw him play, of course. And

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Speaker 1: so I think he's what six ft three, not even

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Speaker 1: two hundred pounds, So I'm curious, like what is going

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Speaker 1: on in Curry's brain that makes him so great? Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's a great question. I wish we knew, um,

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Speaker 1: because you know, obviously, you know, he he has yet

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Speaker 1: to avail himself of of of any neuroscience labs, and

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Speaker 1: I know that neuroscientists would love to get her hand

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Speaker 1: and get their hands on him, because you know, he

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Speaker 1: is a great example of this what we've been talking about,

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Speaker 1: and that is that you can't necessarily judge an athlete

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Speaker 1: purely on his on his physical attributes. You know, Steph

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Speaker 1: Curry coming out of college was considered too unathletic playing

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Speaker 1: the NBA by scouts, and he was he dropped down

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Speaker 1: and forwards because he was maybe too slow. They didn't

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Speaker 1: think he can defend and um, you know, and they

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Speaker 1: and they just were he was not big enough. He

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Speaker 1: did not look like Lebron James, who comes to mind

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Speaker 1: anytime you think about an NBA player, and yet he's

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Speaker 1: been able to rise above above the rest of the league.

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Speaker 1: And I think, you know, if you were to take

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Speaker 1: his his measurable still today and line them up with

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Speaker 1: two other NBA guards, you wouldn't be able to pick

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Speaker 1: him out of a lineup. As a sports fan, now,

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Speaker 1: I've been focused my my whole life on oh the

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Speaker 1: you know, the the speed, the agility, the wingspan of

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Speaker 1: of of especially of NBA prospects, you know as they're

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Speaker 1: coming out to all the scouts and analysts talk about

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Speaker 1: and those are certainly characteristics and factors that can contribute

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Speaker 1: the performance. Don't get me wrong, but but Steph Curry

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Speaker 1: is a great example of this idea that it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's not everything. I remember reading this thing about Steph

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Speaker 1: carry playing horse with his brother Set then is that Dell?

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Speaker 1: And that the games could go on for hours because

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Speaker 1: they were all such good shooters. So funny, But staying

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Speaker 1: with the basketball, I'm curious, um, you know, why is

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Speaker 1: it that we never see an NBA player get anywhere

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Speaker 1: to like a percent of making their free throws. It's

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Speaker 1: called the charity stripe and and all that, like well,

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Speaker 1: what is it about the muscle movements that that that

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Speaker 1: makes this such a difficult task? Yeah, right, It always

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Speaker 1: frustrates me, right that you know, these guys practice it

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Speaker 1: so much and and uh, and yet they they're still

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Speaker 1: unable to make a hundred, not even really get close.

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Speaker 1: I think the the all time leaders is somewhere around

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Speaker 1: or something. If you want to think about our our

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Speaker 1: nervous system, the connections between the brain and the musky glature,

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Speaker 1: as like telephone wires, um, the signals that get sent

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Speaker 1: throughout our body are inherently afflicted with some jittery no ways.

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Speaker 1: What it's called. It's called neuromotor noise. This is inherent

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Speaker 1: to our system. It's just the biological reality. Um, everybody,

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Speaker 1: everybody has it. And it's just a function of our

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Speaker 1: systems not being perfect. You know, we're human, right. You

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Speaker 1: can't make two of the same, exact, precise movements, as

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Speaker 1: as much as you want to try, Um, you're not

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Speaker 1: gonna make two movements of the same Nikolai Burnstein called

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Speaker 1: this repetition. Without repetition, you can repeat movements that functionally

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Speaker 1: look the same, such as swinging an axe and chopping

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Speaker 1: a piece of wood. At all. You know, it looks

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Speaker 1: the same and you will still hit the acts and

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Speaker 1: the same mark, but the movement to actually get to

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Speaker 1: that point will change. Uh. And and that's that is

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Speaker 1: a function of the noisiness of our system. And it's

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Speaker 1: the reason we have the game of darts. Right if

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Speaker 1: if if we were if we were all moving and

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Speaker 1: we had no noise and we move perfectly, we wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have the competition our darts because every one of our

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Speaker 1: movements would just be be the same and be able

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Speaker 1: to throw the dark in the same spot. And so

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Speaker 1: you know, we can create robots that move without noise,

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Speaker 1: but but not ourselves. We we have this um innately

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Speaker 1: in our systems. And uh, it's a it's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's the reason that these NBA guys, no matter

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Speaker 1: how much they practice um you know, they they will

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Speaker 1: they're going to have different movements on on different nights,

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Speaker 1: and their free throws as a results are going to change.

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Speaker 1: Maybe one day, you know, it'll it'll happen because somebody

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Speaker 1: will have a less less noisy system than the rest

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Speaker 1: of us. But to this point it hasn't happened. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's uh, that's fascinating. To think about it. I never

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Speaker 1: thought about it that way. I will say when shock

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Speaker 1: shot free throws, it did pretty much always look like

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Speaker 1: the same horrible line drive form. But but I guess

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Speaker 1: even with Shack and it wasn't you know, moving to

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Speaker 1: a different sport, you talk about tennis stars as being

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Speaker 1: math gen uses. So so why do you say that? Yeah, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it sounds a little strange. You know, tennis tennis in particular,

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Speaker 1: when you were turning a serve in times incredibly quickly,

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Speaker 1: and you're not just swinging at a at a ball

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Speaker 1: that's coming in, you know, straight at you. You're also

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Speaker 1: anticipating where this ball is going to have to bounce.

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Speaker 1: You're anticipating what kind of bouts you're going to receive.

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Speaker 1: And the more experience you have, and that's in that situation,

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Speaker 1: the more accurate your probability will be. So Roger FEDERI,

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Speaker 1: he's got a lot of experience and therefore he can

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Speaker 1: he's going to be more accurate in in choosing the

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Speaker 1: correct response for each serve. You can effectively say that

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Speaker 1: that these these tennis experts are actually using math um

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Speaker 1: to to figure out where where the ball is gonna

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Speaker 1: be come, which line, likely with my own perspective because

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Speaker 1: I was a mediocre tennis player and a mediocre math student.

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Speaker 1: So I think that that add it all, it all

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Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. Actually, there there there was one side

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Speaker 1: note to that I remember, and it makes more sense

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Speaker 1: now thinking about this article that I remember from our

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Speaker 1: Mental Flaws days, where a reader had asked the question,

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Speaker 1: you know, does it actually help a player or give

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Speaker 1: them an advantage when they grunt when they hit the

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Speaker 1: tennis ball? And you know, I guess the studies were

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Speaker 1: showing that that grunting actually does provide a slight advantage

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Speaker 1: because it kind of muffles the sound of the ball

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Speaker 1: hitting the racket, and it gives the opposing player maybe

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Speaker 1: slightly less time or slightly less information. You know, to

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Speaker 1: your point, Zach, that they are kind of using all

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Speaker 1: of these calculations, even unconsciously, as they hear a ball

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Speaker 1: hit a racket, to then decide and that millisecond, you

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Speaker 1: know where the ball may be going or how fast

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Speaker 1: it may be coming to them. So you know, the

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Speaker 1: next time we get out there, I think I'm probably

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Speaker 1: gonna scream a lot every time I hit the ball.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna be great. Well, I mean, what it comes

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Speaker 1: down to is our movement system, our motor system. It's

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Speaker 1: actually costs slow, you know. And and this, this is

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Speaker 1: one of the things that surprised me most is that,

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Speaker 1: you know, I kind of assumed that nervous signals, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, occur quickly, they happen quickly, but it actually,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's actually slower than than you would think.

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Speaker 1: It takes time. And so when you're talking about responding

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Speaker 1: to you know, a hundred and fifty mile an hour

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Speaker 1: serve with all the pressure and and in front of

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Speaker 1: in front of a stadium of a full of fans,

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Speaker 1: and trying to you know, obviously hit an accurate return.

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Speaker 1: You're not just trying to make contact. You have to respond,

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Speaker 1: you have to return it to the right spot. And so,

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Speaker 1: you know, all these things factor into the way that

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Speaker 1: our brain has to make predictions about what's about to unfold.

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Speaker 1: And this this happens all the time, and it especially

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Speaker 1: happens in athletes. And the more experience you have in

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Speaker 1: moving and responding to the tasks that you're shown, um,

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Speaker 1: the the stronger the link between perception and action might be.

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Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. There's an amazing study if

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Speaker 1: you're as ago at in Rome, involving a few professional

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Speaker 1: basketball players. I think they they gathered like six or

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Speaker 1: eight professional Italian basketball players and they had them watch

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Speaker 1: a clip of a sky shooting free throws, and they

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Speaker 1: stopped the clip just as the ball was about to

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Speaker 1: be released from the player's hands. They asked these subjects

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Speaker 1: that these professional players, they asked them whether that the

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Speaker 1: guy made the shot, and they found that the the

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Speaker 1: professional basketball players were far more accurate in predicting whether

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Speaker 1: the guy was going to make or miss the chop

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Speaker 1: than even coaches who were also shots clip and other experts,

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Speaker 1: you know, sportswriters and fans and so on, and so

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Speaker 1: what that told them is that being actively involved in

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Speaker 1: in your you know, whatever task you're trying to do,

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Speaker 1: moving in that way, it actually enhances that link between

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Speaker 1: your perceptual system and your motor system. You can essentially

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Speaker 1: feel what you're seeing or simulate the movement that you're

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Speaker 1: supposed to be doing in response what you're seeing. Really interesting,

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Speaker 1: and it speaks to the difference that these experts uh,

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Speaker 1: the differences that these experts have than the novices than

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Speaker 1: you or I sitting out there on the tennis courts

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Speaker 1: just kind of tennis courts, just kind of reading and reacting.

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Speaker 1: It's that's not what Federer is doing. I remember reading

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Speaker 1: this one thing about uh, Andre Agassi was saying that,

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Speaker 1: you know, almost like a goalie in on penalty shots,

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Speaker 1: for certain servers who are serving so fast, you just

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Speaker 1: have to pick a side, uh, you know, you'd either

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Speaker 1: sort of prep for fourhand or back end. And he

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Speaker 1: said that Boris Becker used to have a tell where

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Speaker 1: he would actually stick his tongue out to the left

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Speaker 1: or right side of his mouth as he was serving,

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Speaker 1: and you could tell kind of where the serve was going,

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Speaker 1: just which is kind of funny. Pretty great. Well, we've

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Speaker 1: got a few more questions for you, Zach, but before

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Speaker 1: we get to those, let's take a quick break. I

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Speaker 1: was reading recently about the Sixers who have implemented this

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Speaker 1: whole chef staff to make sure that their athletes are

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Speaker 1: eating absolutely appropriately. You you see things about like Moneyball

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Speaker 1: and how how teams are sort of evaluating different things

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Speaker 1: to to recruit players, new metrics and stuff, and I'm

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Speaker 1: sort of curious, like, how long will it be before

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Speaker 1: teams start employing neuroscientists on on staff and and which

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Speaker 1: sports do you see relying most on these advancements in

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Speaker 1: the field. It's a good question. I mean, at this moment,

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00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 1: almost every Major League baseball team has at least corresponded

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00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:43,919
Speaker 1: with Decerebro. So the neuroscientists from Columbia that I that

433
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: I wrote about, so Serebra would tell you that baseball

434
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:50,120
Speaker 1: is kind of the perfect fit for what they're doing

435
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:56,439
Speaker 1: because it's a single interaction. Um, it's hitter verse picture

436
00:23:57,040 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: and it's swinger, don't swing, let's go or don't go,

437
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: And so being able to analyze that type of interaction

438
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:06,439
Speaker 1: is a lot easier than being able to say what

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00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,880
Speaker 1: Steph Curry is doing on a basketball court. Because he's

440
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: got four different teammates, he's got five different opponents, He's

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00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:16,680
Speaker 1: moving in all different ways. It's a much more dynamic setting.

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00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think sports maybe like tennis and baseball

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00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:22,199
Speaker 1: kind of that go or no go seemed to be

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00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:26,479
Speaker 1: a better fit for for where neurosciences. You know, there

445
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,159
Speaker 1: was there was one more question that I wanted to

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Speaker 1: ask you before we let you go, and that has

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00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: to do with this idea of intelligent skin. And I

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00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 1: just thought this was fascinating. Whether we're talking about golf

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00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 1: or or tennis or some of these other sports. Can

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00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about this. It's something I'd

451
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:45,240
Speaker 1: really never thought about before. Yeah, yeah, me neither. Um.

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00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:47,359
Speaker 1: You know, our our our skin and our sense of

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00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:52,439
Speaker 1: touch is a very under represented area of science. The

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00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 1: way that we kind of know that we're there's still

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00:24:55,480 --> 00:25:00,360
Speaker 1: a lot more to learn is looking at robotics. Robot

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00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: You know, engineers and neuroscientists have spent a lot of

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00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 1: time trying to figure out how to get robots they'll

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00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 1: move like humans. We can get them to outthink humans. Um,

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00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 1: I just look at how they you know they do

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00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 1: on Jeopardy and in Chest and so on. But we

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00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: haven't yet really gotten any robot that can actively move

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00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: in a way that would have us be confused for

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00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: a human. And uh, you know, all you have to

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00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,199
Speaker 1: do is YouTube robot opening doors and you'll see, you know,

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00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: how far off we are. But what they're actually missing

466
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 1: and what they think is the next step to that

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00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 1: realism of in robotics is the input that perception from

468
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 1: effectively the robot's skin until we Until we get there,

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00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:40,879
Speaker 1: I think it'll be hard to get a robot to

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00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: to move like us, and I think it just tells

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00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: us a little bit more about how how much of

472
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:48,240
Speaker 1: our our own skin is involved in in our movement.

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00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: It's been fascinating and it's really interesting to think about

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00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 1: how much this could change the way we think about

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00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:57,920
Speaker 1: sports and the way we think about these superstar athletes

476
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: really as geniuses in their their own right. So the

477
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: book is called The Performance Cortex, How neuroscience is redefining

478
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 1: Athletic genius. But Zack, thanks so much for joining us today.

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00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, really a lot of fun. Thanks again for listening.

480
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works

481
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:29,959
Speaker 1: and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do

482
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan

483
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:35,680
Speaker 1: McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme

484
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:38,679
Speaker 1: song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland

485
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 1: does the exact producer thing. Gabeluesier is our lead researcher,

486
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan

487
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the

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00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like

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00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 1: what you heard. We hope you'll subscribe, and if you

490
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:53,400
Speaker 1: really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave

491
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Speaker 1: a good review for us. Do we do? We forget

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00:26:55,560 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: Jason Jason who take depict b