Illuminating Brain and Psychological Processes for Peak Performance in Athletes

Main Category: Sports Medicine / Fitness
Article Date: 03 Jun 2005 - 11:00 PDT

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The Brain Resource Company in conjunction with the American Board of Sport Psychology launch WEBNEURO Sport, a web-based Cognitive and Psychological Assessment tool and international database for athletes.

NEW YORK and SYDNEY, Australia, June 2, 2005 -- The Brain Resource Company (BRC - brainresource.com) today launched WEBNEURO Sport, an Internet-based cognitive and psychological tool aimed at a wide range of athletes.

The key partner in this project is Dr. Roland A. Carlstedt, Sport and Clinical Psychologist, Neuroscientist and the Chairman of the American Board of Sport Psychology.

For the first time sport psychology practitioners, coaches and athletes will be able access sophisticated neuropsychological tests from their computer and learn more about key cognitive processes. Specifically, the profile includes an assessment of cognition (sensory-motor, memory, attention, planning and decision making), personality, emotional intelligence and personal history.

Crucially, it also includes the Carlstedt Subliminal Attention, Reactivity and Coping Scale (CSARCS-A), a psychometric instrument that is based on Dr. Roland A. Carlstedt's award-winning research and Theory of Critical Moments, a mind-body model of sport performance that has linked peak performance or Zone states to three primary higher order psychological and behavioral measures that are assessed in WEBNEURO Sport.

The measures that Dr. Carlstedt has isolated are intimately linked to attention, physiological reactivity and cognitive processing of emotions and will provide athletes and coaches immediate feedback regarding an athlete's psychological tendencies, especially during critical moments.

"Training of athletes has traditionally focused on the physical dimension. Increasingly, coaches and athletes are realizing the importance of mental training as the crucial variable for success. WEBNEURO Sport provides insight into an athlete's cognition, personality traits, emotional intelligence, psychological resilience and coping skills for tailoring training regimes for peak performance," says Dr. Evian Gordon, Neuroscientist and CEO of the BRC.

WEBNEURO Sport forms part of the growing suite of brain services offered by BRC. BRC established the first standardized international database on the human brain (with 50 user groups in the USA, Europe, South Africa and Australia). The growing sport database within the broader BRC database will allow sport psychology practitioners, coaches and athletes to obtain valuable information on subtle brain processes and subliminal psychological and behavioral tendencies that mediate sport performance and that are not readily observable and rarely assessed.

Dr. Carlstedt referred to the advent of the BRC International Sport Database as "a milestone in the annals of applied sport psychology that will give coaches and practitioners unprecedented access to sophisticated evidence-based procedures and approaches to the psychological assessment of athletes and their mental training."

The WEBNEURO Sport can be accessed via a portal at the American Board of Sport Psychology website (americanboardofsportpsychology.org) and the BRC Website (brainresource.com).

For more information about WEBNEURO Sport and associated services, please contact Rcarlstedt@americanboardofsportpsychology.org or 917-680-3994; for more information about the International Brain Database, please contact Info@brainresource.com.