Descripción de los procesos que serán objeto de automatización

Communications, Department of Psychology, Warwick, Rhode Island, United States

A

The goal of enhanced performance in sports and fitness training is an ancient pursuit. But using the mind to train itself, and adopting approaches to enable the mind to train the body, is a bold new enterprise.

The brain can be altered in direct response to pharmaceutical applications, surgical techniques, and sudden trauma. It can also be impacted through experience.

According to the most recent studies in neuroplasticity, the brain can be altered through sheer mental experience, in realms that are perceptual, emotional, conceptual, and social. If the experience is related to calisthenics training, the brain‘s altered structure can lead to a cascade effect in the larger physical organism, influencing muscular strength, coordination, and fitness function.

The basic result: if you can engineer the brain's experience, you can engineer the brain.

* Corresponding author: Email: [email protected], www.mindbluff.com.

The "experience" can be a real life experience, but it can also be simulated – an artificial condition, facilitated through a virtual reality experiment, perceptual deception, or sensory hoax.

A brief list of studies suggests the potential of mind-over-matter, the

"matter," in this case, equating to the physical body. My own speculative article (DiPrete, 2008) touches upon the work of Ramachandran and others, and calls for more innovations in this particular line of research.

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The goal of enhanced performance in sports and fitness training follows an ancient pursuit. One notorious "short-cut" to this goal has included the use of steroids to push the athlete into an accelerated mode, short-circuiting the natural regimen of diet, good nutrition and focused exercise. Taking steroids is an illegal practice, one that compromises an athlete's health. Discovery of a more benign (and pragmatic) method to bolster human potential would offer a more adaptive, health-conscious alternative. Using the mind to train itself, and adopting approaches to enable the mind to train the body, would provide a more agreeable solution.

According to recent studies in neuroplasticity, the brain -- and the body -- can be altered through sheer mental experience, in a range of fascinating realms that include the perceptual, emotional, and social aspects of cognition.

If you can engineer the brain's experience, you can engineer the brain. The brain, in turn, can alter the internal structure of the larger human organism.

The "experience" of the brain can be (and usually is) based on a real life experience. But it can also be the result of a simulated illusion – an artificial condition, the latter facilitated through a virtual reality experiment, perceptual deception, or sensory hoax.

A brief list of studies suggests the potential of mind-over-matter, the

"matter," in this case, equating to the physical body. My own speculative article (DiPrete, 2008) touches upon the work of Ramachandran and others, and calls for more innovations in this particular line of research.

B

Studies of neural plasticity suggest that muscular strength can be increased by imagining a specific muscular exercise. For example: focusing on a specific

mental task, such as lifting weights with a finger, gradually increases the finger's strength, endurance, and agility (Yue and Cole, 1992). "…when test subjects visualized themselves lifting weights with a particular finger over a certain period of time, the finger they had imagined lifting with actually became stronger" (as cited in Dispenza, 2007, p. 56).

Focusing on a specific mental task, such as lifting weights with a finger, gradually increases the finger's strength, endurance, and agility.

According to additional research (as cited in Doidge, 2007) the motor cortex is also stimulated by the act of seeing a body part, or illustrations of one. In the study by Yue and Cole (1992), stimulation of the motor cortex leads to a stronger body part.

If, in fact, the nature of this effect (imagining a specific muscular effort to increase muscular strength) remains unaltered if performed simultaneously during the exercise itself, then it‘s probable both exercise and imagination can be coordinated together to increase the effect.

Thus, seeing one's animated reflection in a mirror (implicating the Occipital lobe, and creating a mental imagistic condition) during the exercise should conjoin the exercise to a mental process similar to imagination, and should increase the benefits of such exercise.

Theoretically, seeing an enlarged representation of one's physical exertion, in a magnifying mirror, should increase the sensory impact of the exertion.

Limb motions, magnified in perception, appear to span a greater spatial distance. The extension of an arm, for example, under magnification 2x, creates the illusion of increased speed.

The apparent size, and mass, of the limbs are similarly increased. Such physical actions depicted in sensory form should appear stronger, creating an illusion that one is performing more forcefully than one is actually performing.

The neurological effect should be similarly strengthened, heightening the impact in stimulating the motor cortex as discussed earlier. Thus, the proportionality of effect is significantly enhanced.

The ideas expressed are theoretical (DiPrete, 2008) but trenchant to the aspects of this chapter. Ironically, the perceptual effect could be felt in its opposite form, if it relates to the size-weight illusion described in the paragraph that follows. (If such is the case, perhaps a decreasing-magnification mirror should be used, instead.)

The general idea -- sensory illusion to increase the effects of a physical exercise -- has been suggested by others, such as Ramachandran (2008) in Scientific American Mind. In the article by Ramachandran, a smaller suitcase weighing the same as a larger one is felt, or experienced, as weighing more. It

is a common size-weight deception, described as the Charpentier-Koseleff illusion (1891). "...the implication would be that merely feeling excess exertion causes the brain to send more signals to the heart to raise blood pressure, heart rate and tissue oxygenation" (p. 20).

Could we conclude, then, that lifting a smaller set of barbells – as compared to lifting the same weight in a larger set of barbells – would more significantly increase one‘s lifting exertions, and hence the aerobic benefits?

(In this particular case, perhaps smaller would be better.)

Doidge also describes the work of Ramachandran and others, as it relates to phantom limbs, pain reduction, and stroke rehabilitation. "Mirror therapy...fools the patient's brain into thinking he is moving the affected limb, and so it begins to stimulate that limb's motor programs" (p. 195). Thus, mirrors have been used before as therapy aids in motor control, though not in the manner as described here.

If the practice of exercising in front of a mirror -- especially a magnifying mirror -- increases the physical benefits, then a simple technique exists to enhance the quality of fitness training in sports. The principle could be used to increase the benefits of Olympics training, for example. Installing a set of large magnifying mirrors, in all sports training centers, could facilitate an increase in athletic improvement in a large-scale and cost-effective manner.

P

E

Three groups of athletes, each group engaged in a similar exercise program, such as weight-lifting, would participate in a double-blind experiment. A simple upper-arm strength test would be administered to the members of each group at the beginning, and again at the end, of the month-long program.

The program setting, décor, time frames, etc. would be identical, except for the fact that for one group, large wall-mirrors of normal reflecting surface would face the members of that group during their exercise; in the second group, large wall-mirrors of reflecting magnifying surface would face the members of that group during their exercise; finally, in the third group, no mirrors would face the members of that group during their exercise.

At the end of the month-long experiment, strength gains (as determined by the strength test), would be compared to determine which group acquired the most upper-arm strength.

A similar experiment (without mirrors) could be performed using larger barbells versus smaller barbells, both of the barbells of the same weight, to determine if superior strength gains occur in the group using the smaller barbells.

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The internal, physiological, aspects of brain transformation, and the external ("experiential") aspects of brain transformation, appear to coincide.

The result is a coalition of parallel and corresponding influence. The exploration of the brain's mental or conscious architecture (often the result of sensory data: perception, hearing and touch), in response to an experiential illusion, offers a promising frontier that could, perhaps, be manipulated – in artful fashion -- to produce profound neurological effects.

Reaction to input generated from the environment plays a central role in experience. The environment can be artificial or simulated, as long as the sensory (or psychological) inferences taking place in the recipient‘s mind appear to be actual, real, or meaningful.

The tools and approach of the artful simulator -- the manipulator of an artificial or virtual environment -- differ from the usual techniques associated with the psychologist's stock-in-trade. The most applicable skills for such expertise probably would be found in a Hollywood director or a stage magician -- or, perhaps, in a software or game designer. Popular examples of the latter include home entertainment simulations such as Microsoft‘s Flight Simulator and the Nintendo Wii console.

The interface of mind and experience creates a measurable, physiological alteration in the brain. If the experience is related to calisthenics training, the brain‘s altered physiology leads to a cascade effect that influences muscular strength, coordination, and fitness function in the athlete.

C

The range of possibilities that exist in the creation of tailored experiences, designed to create specific results in the brain, can be explored through the ingenious fruits of human imagination. The more tailored and realistic the experience is, the more interesting the results should be.

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Charpentier, A. (1891). Analyse expérimentale de quelques éléments de la sensation de poids [Experimental study of some aspects of weight perception]. Archives de Physiologie Normale et Pathologique, 3, 122-135.

DiPrete, J. (2008). Mirror magnification as sensory stimulus for increasing sports fitness training results. Medical Hypotheses, 71, 649-650.

Dispenza, J. (2007). Evolve your brain (56). Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc.

Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes itself (203-204,195). New York:

Viking.

Ramachandran, V. S. & Rogers-Ramachandran, D. (2008). Sizing things up.

Scientific American Mind, 19(1), 18-20.

Yue, G. & Cole, K. J. (1992). Strength increases from the motor program-comparison of training with maximal voluntary and imagined muscle contractions. Journal of Neurophysiology, 67(5), 1114-1123.

Chapter 6