Genetics, Epigenetics, and Talent

Looks at genes and their expression in athletic capability. There is no athletic gene; there is a general confluence of specific and general capabilities that converge on athletic expression. Such events reflect experience, culture and epigenetic expression; the absolute continuity of biology and culture; both a reflection of one another.

Sports, Brain, Body, and the World

Sport as a practice and cognitive event is largely action-oriented: there is thought in action, even if it is not particularly conscious thought. Habits codified in the motor regions of the brain underlie action. Muscle memory is fundamental; it is a metaphor for the organization of action. Importantly, neurotransmitters such dopamine are tied to the organization of action, salience, cognition, and, perhaps, the prediction of events. Diverse regions of the brain (e.g., the amygdala) and neuropeptides (oxytocin) are linked to social contact and play-related behaviors, and these same regions are crucial to a broad-based assessment of social context and meaning.

Running and the Brain: Neurogenesis

Begins with some of the conditions that set the stage for the act of running, and then look at neurogenesis, brain expansion, and longer-term consequences of running within a context of specific morphological features and diverse information molecules that participate in our capacity for running and sport. Running itself promotes cell proliferation in the hippocampus, in part through the induction of endorphins or diverse neuronal growth factors. Running and neurogenesis are linked to forms of basic adaptation; running easily transitioned from joint coordination to play, and eventually to sport.

The Concept of Sport

Shows the context for understanding sport, breathing, given our capabilities and our cultural evolution; sport lies in the continuous fluidity between biology and culture.

Throwing, Swimming, and Rowing

Continues the thread of our anchoring to objects and others in the organization of action and in sport in particular; social organization, human development, pedagogy, and tool use. I start with the visual system, so central to human evolution and our practice of most sports. I will then continue with problem solving and sport, throwing, swimming and rowing; biogical spreading through sports and sports impacting physical and mental capabilities. Human evolutionary history shows that throwing is a feature of our species and that to throw well was to survive. The capacity to store energy and release it with control, rapidity, and flexibility probably emerged with Homo erectus about 2 million years ago, along with greater flexibility of the torso; the infusion of energy vital for hunting and running emerged with shoulder flexibility and control over the elbow and wrist.

Evolution, Play, and Sport

Sport as a practice and cognitive event is largely action-oriented: there is thought in action, even if it is not particularly conscious thought. Habits codified in the motor regions of the brain underlie action. Muscle memory is fundamental; it is a metaphor for the organization of action. Importantly, neurotransmitters such dopamine are tied to the organization of action, salience, cognition, and, perhaps, the prediction of events. Diverse regions of the brain (e.g., the amygdala) and neuropeptides (oxytocin) are linked to social contact and play-related behaviors, and these same regions are crucial to a broad-based assessment of social context and meaning.

Regulation, Recovery, and Resilience

Begins with emotion and sport and then describes some of the bodily regulation that figures importantly in sport and the adversity or stress that underlies sports events. Coping and adaptation are inherent across the broad array of competitive sports. Biological capabilities made this possible and sport enhance both are mental and physical capabilities. Comebacks in life and in sport are chancy things: some can do it, some can’t, and some can come back to a sport or other activity and then fail a second time. Our emotional sensibility underlies the bulk of activity in sport; our well-being and sense of positive emotion figure in our comebacks, sustaining our action and assessing of events. Emotions are active in our adaptive and survival capabilities.

Sport and Successful Aging

What is clear is the richness of biology, culture, and deep relationships; sport reveals what makes us human in our biological evolution and in its modification and expansion into cultural evolution. An evolutionary perspective is one route to understanding sport; blended with our biology, culture fuels our capabilities. The evolution of the brain and other organ systems were vital steps in how we became able to do sport and how other hominoids did not. And research has now entered the arena of genetics and epigenetics in understanding sports capability.

Dignity and Beauty

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Fairness and Sports

Begins with a discussion of drug abuse in sport, before moving on to consider fairness in sport and the expansion of our sense of rights and human participation; our cultural evolution through the participation in sports. Engaging in play that turns into sport is one way we learn about fairness: following the rules, playing the game fairly. Mammalian play is at the root of the socialization process so essential for getting a foothold in the world and fairness is a feature of our cultural evolution; a feature that coexists and evolved with sports participation. Sports exist in the context of social hope and broader participation in a common context of human expression, striving to release the “better angels of our nature.”