At the University of California San Diego, the OptiBrain Center serves as a consortium of cognitive neuroscientists and researchers from the Warfighter Performance Department of the Naval Health Research Center, Naval Special Warfare Group ONE, and University of California San Diego Department of Psychiatry.
These OptiBrain researchers have conducted studies of elite performance and stress in settings that include Olympic athletes, naval personnel including Navy SEALs and special military forces. OptiBrain identifies factors that contribute to optimal performance in extreme environments utilizing neuro-imaging tools and functional neuro-imaging.
OptiBrain seeks the answers to the following questions:
* What brain systems underlie successful recovery from stress?
* Can these brain systems be modified through training?
* What brain systems can be used for prediction of optimal performance?
* How can brain systems modulated prior to, or during, exposure to high-magnitude stress?
In a fascinating recent test of marathon swimmers, founder Dr. Martin Paulus (shown above) identified how and why marathon swimmers are different than the rest of their land-based endurance colleagues.
The results will be explained on an American television special airing in 2014.
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