OptiBrain

Overview

Outline

Members

Ongoing Study

UPDATES:

• OptiBrain is now examining the brains of extreme performers - what makes a person excel?
   
• First results of our elite military performers are almost ready to send out for publication.
   
• Review of existing literature accepted for publication (here is a preprint).
   
• Questions? - contact Martin Paulus

Overview:

The goal of the center is to utilize neuroscience tools to uncover the brain mechanisms that underlie optimal performance and to understand how one modulates these brain mechanisms to optimize performance.

This multidisciplinary center brings together groups who are interested in optimizing performance. 

The current members of OptiBrain come from: 

• Naval Health Research Center (NHRC)-San Diego;

• Naval Special Warfare Center - San Diego

• Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences-A*STAR

• U.S. Olympic Training Center-Chula Vista;

• University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

UCSD serves as the coordinating site of the OptiBrain Center, which will be under the auspices as a Center of Excellence in the Department of Psychiatry.   These three units bring unique strengths and expertise to the center.  Specifically, the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) is interested in identifying factors that contribute to optimal performance in extreme environments.  Moreover, the Olympic Training Center is focusing on identifying what factors make athletes perform optimally during competition.  Finally, the University of California San Diego will contribute neuroscience as well as psychiatric expertise and generate a organization and infrastructure network that will enable the center to develop experimental probes, quantitative analysis pathways, and predictive tools that are aimed to address the following questions:

• What is optimal performance?
• What brain systems are involved in optimizing performance?
• What are brain system predictors of optimal performance?
• How can we modulate brain systems that are important for optimal performance?

The center will begin to identify a small number of pivotal studies to make progress towards identifying mechanisms underlying optimal performance.  These studies are aimed at:

(1)   Identifying the cognitive and affective characteristics of individuals who are optimal performers in extreme operational environments, such as special operations units in the military and international athletic competition.

(2)   Determine whether simple experimental challenge paradigms can be used to predict different levels of performance in these extreme environments.

(3)   Use of both behavioral and pharmacological interventions to modify brain systems that are important for optimal performance.

The center will initially focus on identifying the brain systems that are important for the following constructs:

(1)   Resiliency: the ability to overcome difficult situations

(2)   Determination and will: the ability to proceed under complex and difficulty contextual circumstances

(3)   Quitting: the act of “giving up” or premature termination of behavior under difficult circumstances.

Outline of Center Organization

There is substantial evidence that exposure to extreme situations or environments have profound cognitive, affective, and social effects.  Previous studies have shown that one can simulate exposure to extreme environments in the laboratory.  However individual, social, and demand-specific factors influence optimal performance in a complex manner.  Optimal performance is not necessarily predicted by questionnaires, but may be predictable by performance measures that are assessed in the laboratory while under stress, and may depend on the nature of the extreme situation.  The level of performance in extreme environments is significantly affected by cognitive appraisal processes, which in turn, activate cognitive and affective prediction systems that are aimed to optimize actions with respect to achieving a desired outcome.  Therefore, a neural systems model of optimal performance in extreme environments needs to include brain structures that are important for these functions. 

The University of California San Diego Neuroscience Group is among the most respected and outstanding in the world and offers expertise in a range of neuroscience tools in general and functional neuroimaging tools in particular.  Specifically, aside from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), multimodal imaging laboratories focus on bringing together MRI and magneto-encephalography, and an emerging positron emission tomography (PET) group is linking brain receptor functioning to various brain diseases.  The OptiBrain center will draw on these resources to address specific optimization-related questions.

Initially, we will focus on the following projects:

(1)   Development of a neuroscience framework to predict optimal performance during extreme training.

(2)   Development of a neuroscience framework to predict cognitive, affective and social deterioration following the exposure to an extreme environment.

Among the questions, that will be addressed are:

(1)   Are there cognitive, affective and social measures that can clearly quantify optimal performance?

(2)   Is optimal performance under extreme conditions a generic characteristic of an individual or task- and environment-dependent?

(3)   What are predictors of optimal performance in extreme environments?

(4)   What interventions to increase optimal performance can be developed based on the knowledge gained of the basic factors and processes that underly optimal performance?

Achieving the proposed goal of a theoretical and practical framework for understanding performance in extreme environments will have the following beneficial effects:

(1)   Rational development of intervention strategies to improve optimal performance or attenuate deterioration of cognitive, affective, and social functioning after exposure to an extreme environment.

(2)   Better identification of individuals who are “optimal performers” and individuals at risk for adverse consequence from exposure to extreme environments.

(3)   A deeper scientific understanding of what optimal means in terms of neural systems functioning.

Therefore, this center will benefit both the “basic” sciences of the brain and the applied application of these insights into daily functioning.  In this sense, OptiBrain is a truly translational and multi-disciplinary approach to solve the complex problem “how can one optimize performance in a challenging situation?”

Founding Members:

Ongoing Study: Brain Processing of Optimal Performers

The OptiBrain Center is a consortium of investigators from University of California San Diego, the Naval Health Research Center, the Olympic Training Center and the Naval Special Warfare Center, San Diego, CA. OptiBrain researchers are dedicated to uncovering the brain mechanisms that are important for optimal performance in extreme environments. To this end, the Center is conducting a study to determine how the brains of individuals respond to different types of mental and physical challenges.

This study will use functional brain imaging and simple tasks to find whether people who are extremely successful in difficult situation have a unique “brain processing signature”. Understanding how the brain function in extremely successful individuals will help us to develop new training techniques and to identify other individuals who may also perform extremely well.

We are asking for about 2 hours of an individual's time to help with these research studies. During this time the person will complete a questionnaires about how he/she feels, the person will be asked to complete a simple task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The fMRI uses magnetic fields to visualize brain activity. Some individuals find that the fMRI machine is rather noisy, but there is no radiation or other adverse effects from the imaging machine. During the scan the person will perform 2 simple behavioral test and the person will be ask to breathe through a tube, which at times will be connected to a resistor that makes it more difficult to breathe. At no point will there be any challenge to the person's physical health. During these tests, we will record how the person's brain activity changes as a function of these challenges. At the end, the individual will receive a picture of his/her brain image at the end of the study. Most importantly, the individual's identity will be kept anonymous, that is, nobody will be able to identify a specific brain activity with a particular person. Instead, all analysis will be done on groups of individuals.