What is ISM?
What is ISM?
Interhemispheric Synchronization Mediation (a neurological phenomenon)
The date of my specific epiphany? 22nd February 2019.
Very specific date right?
On this day (pre-pandemic)…
While LISTENING to my classical music playlist warming up to play some competitive golf, THINKING about a podcast detailing Einstein's preserved brain, and REFLECTING on my last five years as the primary caregiver for an elderly brain trauma victim...it all made a common correlation to ISM.
How?
Golf gets a bad rap when it comes to the pursuit of excellence, but some yogis would argue that meditation and perfectly struck golf swings are synchronous in their intention. This past-time for many is also a side arm sport (meaning there is a dominant side that is entrained to perform).
My playing partners after the round must have thought that I had a stroke, but I just sat there contemplating these three things, almost like Newton and his fallen apple.
Interhemispheric Synchronization Mediation is a neural phenomenon that I will try to explain in the context of ‘training your brain’. Breaking this down is hard since we know about the neuro-anatomy, and the synapses of pathways connecting these, but there is much more to be understood regarding the interactions between hemispheres (Corpus callosum-the myelinated nerve fibers as the border). The saying goes the right hemisphere of the brain is regarded as the “playful” side and modern daily tasks overuse the contralateral “analytical” side.
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Listening to music through AirPods whilst playing golf is considered an illegal advantage, and no wonder why...the state of mind through the binaural beats helped my timing and sequencing throughout my swing performance. A coach would recommend that the appropriate pathways are being stimulated for the required task at hand, but not all shots are the same, but this is the path for building excellence in a closed environment.
The post-mortem and preserved Albert Einstein's brain is anatomical evidence that music and taking mental vacations develop and differentiate one's neuro-anatomy. His brain is said to have folds in his right ventricular region. This correlates to playing his favorite musical instrument, the violin, whilst taking breaks from his brutal cognitive routines that were analytical in nature.
My 56-year-old mother had a brain tumor the size of a tennis ball removed from her right hemisphere (This surgery is called right ventricular craniectomy), this triggered a stroke to which left-side paralysis was a consequence (leaving her hemiplegic and dependent on maximum assistance).
Why?
The reason why there is contralateral damage is the motor control decussation before the cervical region (decussation pyramids in CNS will provide afferent motor neurons to the opposite side requiring muscle recruitment).
She is elderly, the MRI post-surgery showed that tumor removal left no residual, and the available dead space for the next few years was crucial for livelihood and future independence. ISM would be the phenomenon in which she would relearn basic tasks literally like a toddler trying to walk for the first time. The right hemisphere damage also implicates vital skills like balance and assertive decision-making in executive orders within oneself.
ISM would be prevalent in all these case examples, the overuse of the wrong muscles in the golf swing can lead to the "yips" (a condition known as focal dystonia with ball sports requiring precision, especially the reliance on fine motor skills, and this is witnessed in some short missed puts on the tour). Not only are these psychological phenomena but also neurological degeneration over time, which is why the generalist approach in neural networks as ironic as it sounds could result in the prevention of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's for example.
Einstein may have been a left-side dominant thinker, and analytical computational outputs do have an inevitable burnout leading to fatigue. His violin was something of a cross-activity that could be compared to a runner that requires swimming rehab.
My mom did make remarkable improvements in speech, using training aids to walk without assistance in her window of opportunity to develop relearned skills. You can say in this instance that the subject had a 65-year-old left brain and a 9-year-old right brain, literally rewiring and changing dependencies (her eye tests showed that there were noticeable modifications made internally to use both focal frequencies, not any left eye only focus), she is well, living her new normal now and bless her soul!
Understanding ISM has many applications, and this is something peak performance and wellness coaches can speak of, but I would want to go deeper and understand the mechanism for this phenomenon.
Hope you enjoyed reading it!