#135 - The Missing Link in Athletic Performance: Brain Mapping & Neurofeedback with Dr. Kevin Butterfield, Part 2

Welcome to The Factor Podcast, where we talk about the stuff they didn't teach you in school. How to grow your practice, refine your clinical skills, and get better results for your patients. We're here to help you navigate the real-world challenges of being a healthcare provider, from delivering top-notch patient care to running a business that doesn't run you into the ground. Whether you're fresh out of school or scaling your practice, we're diving into effective cutting-edge treatments to get patients better faster. We'll also talk about business strategies and tactics to help you work smarter and not harder, and the mindset shifts required to thrive as a top performer in your field so you can build a career you love without burning out. If you're ready to learn what works and what doesn't from leading experts, industry innovators, and respected clinicians across a wide range of specialties, you're in the right place, my friend. Let's dive in. When the difference between winning and losing is measured in fractions of a second, Physical preparation alone isn't always enough. Increasingly, elite athletes and sports organizations are looking beyond strength and conditioning to gain a competitive edge by training the brain. Welcome back to The Factor Podcast, where we explore the latest evidence, emerging technologies, and clinical strategies to help healthcare providers deliver better outcomes for their patients. I'm your host, Jessica Riddle, and today we're continuing our special featured training from the Better Brains, Better Futures podcast. Hosted by Seth Kalin. Better Brains, Better Futures is a member of the Factor Podcast Network, where we bring you conversations from trusted providers and thought leaders who are advancing evidence-informed healthcare. If you missed part 1, I encourage you to go back and listen to that first. In our part 1 episode, Seth and Dr. Kevin Butterfield introduced the science behind quantitative EEG brain mapping and neurofeedback. Explaining why the brain may be one of the most overlooked factors in athletic performance. In part 2, the conversation will shift from theory to application. You'll hear how professional athletes and sports organizations are using brain mapping and neurofeedback to improve focus, reaction time, emotional regulation, and recovery. Dr. Butterfield also shares real-world case studies Involving Formula 1 racing, the NFL, professional golf players, MMA, and concussion rehabilitation. Dr. Butterfield also shares real-world case studies involving Formula 1 racing, the NFL, golfers, MMA, and concussion rehabilitation while exploring how clinicians can begin integrating these technologies into practice. Whether your patients are youth athletes, weekend warriors, or elite competitors, this conversation offers valuable insights in the future of performance healthcare. Whether your patients are youth athletes, weekend warriors, or elite competitors, this conversation offers valuable insights into the future of performance healthcare. Let's jump into part 2.

Benefits for coaches and medical teams. So we're not just providing you a neurofeedback as a, as a tool. We're providing you that qEEG, that brain map that helps you provide the data point that can Give you more perspective as if there's a coach, as a, as a clinician practitioner, to make clinical decisions, to make game day decisions, to make training development plan decisions. So we replace that guesswork with objective neurological data. So that way we can actually show you results along the way. So you, you, you get that pre-readiness, pre-competition readiness scan. We can do preseason, midseason. End of the season. You could do before a big game. We can kind of see where this readiness state is. Dr. Kevin has worked with race teams across the country and doing weekend neurofeedback on them to get ready for race day. So we're able to work with— from that short window to actually make an impact on someone, not just full protocol that's going to be over a 12 to 15 week period of time. We can actually have an impact on an individual that's going getting ready for game day. So we can provide that real-time recovery assessment, and it integrates well with— if you have a strength and conditioning coach and workflow, we're able to support you with that, integrating different protocols to help with that as well. So shift in practice as far as integrating neurofeedback. So it's a new assessment, but it provides you that support to be more data-driven. We have a clinical-grade qEEG. It's an objective snapshot. to provide that cognitive and autonomic readiness. And it only takes 10 minutes to actually do it. Once you get the cap on to do a brain map, it doesn't take long at all. So we're changing it from whether it's after concussion or after training, just saying, how do you feel? We're able to do a brain map and say, this is actually what your brain's showing us, and how does that actually correlate with, with how you're feeling? So it gives you that objective tool.

The field integration in elite and youth sports Again, it, it's perfect for your practice itself. It's portable. You can take it to the events, you can take it to some games, you can do whatever from warmup before the game, after the game. If they get a concussion, you can check to see if there's any signatures of a concussion on the brain map, and you can go ahead and address that at the office.

So the neurofeedback advantage, I mean, we've kind of talked about this, but we're, we're really focusing on trying to mitigate that long-term effect When we're talking about youth sports and their concussions, that long-term effect that it can have. If we don't have an individual that— like a player— Dr. Kevin normally goes into a case study. I'll just review it briefly. A soccer player that was 10 years old had a concussion and was a perfect student basically before that. After the concussion, for over a year, had all sorts of mood issues, anxiety issues, overreaction issues. Grades completely dropped and was failing. And, after a year, they came and saw Dr. Kevin. And, within 30 sessions, he was completely back to normal of the 10-year-old that his parents had before. So, if they didn't find Dr. Kevin and after all the medications that they tried, they went to chiropractors, they went to others that tried to help fixing and they got the musculoskeletal fixed but were not able to get the brain back in tune, without finding a neurofeedback practitioner, that child may have went on for years with, with poor grades, mood issues, and trouble in school, and it could have changed the entire trajectory of that individual. So we really— back to the human dimension— these are individuals, they are humans that we're making an impact on, and we really want to have as many of these placed around the country so we can have a greater impact on the future of the youth generation. So we're protecting that future development, we're helping to safeguard that, help them get back into play, but also helping them get back into normal life. It's gentle, it's drug-free, it's non-invasive. So we're— and with neurofeedback, it's resilience training. We're creating that resiliency, that self-awareness, so they actually become more aware and they're able to respond and think about things before they respond, so they're responding appropriately. And we want to really bring in the complete brain health, so Again, like I mentioned earlier, is that metabolic support. It's that lifestyle support. We still need the proper amount of DHA to be able to support the brain cells regenerating themselves. And there's other aspects that we want to be able to decrease neuroinflammation in a brain. So we combine that together at Hippocampus Labs with neurofeedback support and supplementation and lifestyle recommendations to give you the best opportunity for success.

All right, this is, this is a good one. This is my wheelhouse here about the racing. We had— I set up a racing simulator in my office. An IndyCar medical team, or the Dr. Olvey and Dr. Trammell, those are the IndyCar medical directors. They asked me if I could do a study on them with the concussions and does our peak performance protocols actually work? I mean, do they make the drivers faster? Do they get the static out of their brain so they can concentrate a lot better? And I said, well, yes, let's find out. So a lot of professional race teams over in Europe use this. Like Lewis Hamilton's a 7-time Formula 1 world champion. Neurofeedback is part of his mental training routine is what he said. It keeps the, the brain sharp and focused. And you need good hand-eye coordination and really quick. When the world's traveling by at 230 miles an hour, you got to be on your game. Because one little slip up, you're off, you get off your line and you're in trouble. Yeah, there's a 40% reduction in cognitive drift. I think it's higher than that, but Yeah, so this guy here, he's getting a peak performance training session. That's the brain map and everything we look at. There's a simulator. That's an F2 driver from Europe that came over from France to do the study to see what it's actually doing. You can see the sensors on his head there. So the way this, this, this worked was I, I had drivers from go-karts, IndyCar, NASCAR, dirt track, everything you name it. Because everyone's different, has different brain areas they got to work on. The way it worked is I had them drive 30 minutes on the track they're most familiar with that they won't crash on. And then they stayed in the, in the, in the seat on the simulator and they had the cap on. And I said, okay, now I'm doing my peak performance protocol for 30 minutes. Close your eyes and just relax. And then I said, go back out there, do another 30 minutes. All their times improved, all of them. And they— I asked them how they felt after they went through this training, and they said, I felt more confident in the car. I braked later into the corner and accelerated quicker getting out, and I felt more comfortable and at ease. So we just— our protocol cleared out the static, elevated the alpha waves, and got rid of all the stuff that he didn't need for when he's racing out there. So it was really— it was really an excellent study. So we got a ton of data on that one.

Your patients have their blood tested, their heart checked, their vision measured. So when was the last time anyone actually looked at their brain? Hippocampus Labs helps practices add qEEG brain mapping and neurofeedback as a complete new service line. Objective assessment, Clinical protocols, professional reporting, expert practitioner included and available for consult. We build the program, train your team, and bring you the patients. You deliver the care. Turnkey from day 1. Hippocampus Labs. Visit hippocampuslabs.com to learn more.

And there's a study, I think, in Denmark. I think that's the one you were asking about where This is good for golfers. They really have to be on their game because one missed putt, you can't get back in the game, right? You're mentally out of it. So we have to get the frontal alpha suppression. If you got that, that's a problem. Elevated anterior beta, you're overthinking, more rigid. You have to clear these out and balance those, which you can do with the neurofeedback. Bryson DeChambeau is PGA. He crushes that ball when he tees up. He says when his heart rate goes up, he was able to control it and get it back down. That means he can state shift from being— get— getting stressed, here comes anxiety, to now calm it down to get in the zone where you have to be. So it doesn't bother you as much. So that's what it's good for— putting game, and it's good for performance anxiety, like getting rid of that, to get all the static out of your brain. And Kirk Cousins, he's an NFL football player. He's been using neurofeedback for a long time. He wears— he does it before a game. He does it after a game. And again, the key here is if you can see it and you can measure it, you can change it. And if you can see how his brain is before a game and then after a game, that's the perfect time to use all this. But you get sustained focus, emotional regulation, and stress mitigation, and your hand-eye coordination is improved. And they said that Peyton Manning, he was like, he's got to be on some growth hormone. He's throwing like a young kid and his targets are always on. target, but he was actually doing neurofeedback his whole career. He was one of them also. So it definitely helps athletes and pro athletes are— oh yeah, Seth, you can do this one here.

Yeah, so this is— so they want Kirk Cousins, Peyton Manning, you talking about— we're talking about peak performance, being at the top of your game. But this reference really is for concussion recovery. This player, Dave Studdard, he was a former NFL lineman for the Broncos. And they did this with a dozen retired Denver Broncos players, decade-old concussion symptoms. Many experienced significant improvements, some reporting dramatic recoveries from memory deficits, depression, and mood swings. So, Dave Stutter's quote there was, it was kind of like night and day. The light came back on and clarity just everywhere. They've given me back my life that NFL took away from me. So yes, it's powerful like in that. And just think about that for how many people deal with concussions that are under the radar, or they have a mild concussion, or how many youth athletes get concussions that never actually get addressed with neurofeedback, but they get cleared to go back in the game. So there's going to be ongoing things that are going to be symptoms. It says decade-old symptoms addressed. This is not something that goes away because once that injury is there and the, the brain has learned to adapt to that situation of that concussion, The brainwaves change, and with the damage that was done, the brainwaves stay in that regard without any support to help train them back. So Dr. Kevin calls it scrubbing the concussion away. We're able to remove that electrical signature that was creating that static and that noise and problems of symptoms that they were experiencing long after the inflammation reduced. There's another— we can go in a deeper level. There may be antibodies that are still occurring with the concussions. They still need that metabolic support. They still need neuroinflammatory support, they still need the DHA. But these specific players had major results with just neurofeedback of erasing some of the stuff they've been dealing with for years. It's very powerful. And there's another case study of MMA, controlling the fight before it starts, being able to be in that, that ready state, that emotional volatility that occurs when you get punched in the face. One of the best, one of the best lines I've ever heard, everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face, by Mike Tyson. that the ability for neurofeedback to help with that stress resilience, to be able to snap back into focus, to be able to have that control and composure under extreme stress when you're getting choked out. So that's not something that I'm going to do and put myself under a study for specifically, but yeah, it's had some major impacts across all sorts of sports. Really is what I think the picture we're trying to paint here is it doesn't matter the sport We're able to elevate and able to support that athlete be at the best that they can be.

Go ahead.

So the mechanism of action. So there's 3 main biological mechanisms that these pathways are essential for you to understand and for coaches to understand when they're working with an individual, an athlete, to know that there's prime time to actually be working together with neurofeedback as a coach or as a healthcare practitioner that's guiding them mentally to be more in their game. So neuroplasticity— neurofeedback is increasing neuroplasticity. We're continuously reinforcing the optimal brainwave states because the brainwaves are out of, out of sync. We're able to measure the brainwaves of that individual in real time and measure it against a normative database, and then we're able to train it back into where the normative range is. So we're doing that, but what if somebody has anxiety or they have depression or if they have focus issues? If we're helping with increasing neuroplasticity in with the brain, that's the best time for that player to be going through coaching sessions. That's the best time for that player to be getting guidance to learn new skills. So neuroplasticity is major in that operant conditioning, recognizing the flow state through reward feedback. And that's really how neurofeedback works. It's through the reward mechanism. That tone actually provides where Dr. Kevin mentioned, you put on the headset and there's a— we use auditory neurofeedback is what Hippocampus Labs does generally. And that response provides a very small dopamine response in the brain. So over time, the brainwaves start to train, they get into the reward mechanism, and it actually happens within 3 to 4 minutes of each session. You're able to see those brainwaves go into the normal range because that dopamine response that's ever so slight is able to train that brainwave very quickly. And corticolimbic modulation, prefrontal training strengthens top-down regulation of the limbic system, improving emotional control and reducing reactive stress-driven performance under stress. Hold on one second. I got a question that came in. So, all right. So the body's reset system, autonomic integration. So neurofeedback doesn't operate in the brain isolation. Like, as I mentioned, it's a bidirectional pathway. Metabolic system is supporting the brain, the brain is supporting the metabolic system. So we're able to, to make a response. And if you haven't seen our previous webinars in HRV, we can send you that heart-brain connection, vagal tone. So these are standard markers for autonomic health and resilience. We're able to actually impact those. Significantly, we're able to calm sympathetic dominance and able to control the sympathetic system, autonomic nervous system, to be able to respond appropriately. And when I say that respond appropriately, it doesn't really go into depth of what that really means. But if we're able to respond appropriately, if we're not overreacting to something, that means we're having reduced cortisol response, we're having reduced other hormone responses that, that are unnecessary. The, the more we're able to bring that, those hormones down in the body, then the more resilient we're able to become, the more we're able to actually restore what may be a cortical-resistant cell. If we're able to reduce that stress over time, we're able to reset that system. We're able to reset the response, the feedback loop. Also, the endocannabinoid system tone, rhythm regulation, promoting natural recovery mechanisms. So there's a lot of references that we'll provide you as well. Again, if you are watching this recording, please just make sure you ask for those references and we'll follow up with that. After the fact, and we'll send you an email. So these are just 4 studies that we just selected to show you here, but it's not an emerging hypothesis. It's a clinically substantiated method with over 2 decades of peer-reviewed validation across cognitive performance, reaction time, recovery, sports-specific outcomes. There's more research than the past 2 decades. That's just the— there's been a lot of research over the past 2 decades. There's actually been research since the '50s and before that. You just had less quantity of it. So protocol development at Hippocampus Labs, that's our, that's our foundation. That's what we provide, is we provide you clinical success from day one with Dr. Kevin Butterfield and our neuroscience team. Over 10,000 brain maps we reviewed, so it's a massive data set that we've gone through over all of his experience and our team's experience. 100% custom protocols. So, no templates. So, we don't just take an athlete and use that brain map and provide you just a simple training that kind of saw those performance protocols. We can get results with those, but what we want to do is we want to make sure that we focus on what is specifically going on with that individual athlete's brain so we can actually get the best results possible that's just going to be beyond just the game time. It's going to be more for the game time plus their long-term health and wellness. Multiple disciplines. Like I said, this is this applies to any sport, to any athlete, to really any individual. But for today's purposes, we're really just we're optimizing sports to be able to to be at our best on the field, on the pitch, as they say, or on the court, or on the rink. There's a lot of different ones that they could be. So integration pathways. So whether you're independent sports medicine provider or you're a professional team organization, we are working with. teams that we can provide you a clear pathway of how to use qEEG and neurofeedback within your existing structure. For providers and clinicians, the qEEG Performance Assessor, really, that having that baseline is so powerful to be able to make changes with your, you know, patients and their families, to be able to, to get the most data possible on what's going on with their brain. And most of the time, When you, when you do the brain map and you show them the areas of the brain that they're being affected with depending on how, how bad things are with them, they're like, that's just like you knew all, all the things that I'm dealing with that I haven't said to you. So we blend neurofeedback into both sports chiropractic, physical therapy, any rehabilitation workflow. If you're just a team or a coach, so we provide that objective baseline. We have practitioners that we can also refer. depending on where your sports team is, to provide— help you with that readiness profile to support your training cycle. So we can help you with reducing burnout, to help with longitudinal recovery and cognitive load tracking and mental conditioning. So that's integrated as a core pillar that we want to have integrated into all sports organizations is there's this physical support and strength training, That is provided. And they're professional athletes, obviously they're training on a daily basis. But most of them, especially in youth sports or in that semi-pro level or collegiate level, they're not doing anything for daily brain training or weekly brain training. And they're not doing support mechanisms to actually make sure that they're at their best, making the best decisions on the field and off the field. Because remember, this is the human dimension. We're not just training an athlete. To be the best athlete that they can be. We're training a human to be the best human that they can be. So when they're off the field, they're going to make better decisions. They're going to get better grades. They're going to have better relationships. They're going to have better stress response when challenges arise, because we obviously don't live in a bubble. We live in a very stressful world. So this is really making a major impact for the individuals that you're able to touch and support. So we have packages and invitation support. So we, we have tiers to help whether you're athlete programs, whole team or a whole organization, multiple teams. So we can help support you as a practitioner to work with these teams as well to develop these individual protocol implementation programs. Or if you're a team that's looking for a practitioner with neurofeedback, we can help guide you with the best solution that is available out there on the market. So elite athletes train their muscles, champions train their minds. On your way to the top, don't forget to take your brain with you. I think that's a quote by Dr. Kevin.

Yes, it is. That's a good one. I threw that in there.

That's right. That's the man. So it's really, it's the edge, the neural edge, the measurable, and it's trainable. As Dr. Kevin mentioned, if you can measure it, you can train it, you can change it. Your athletes deserve every advantage available, and the most powerful one is already inside them. So there's a phone number there, 833-722-7662. You can text us now, or you can text us whenever you want, but texting us now will help get you on the schedule for us to be able to have a conversation. We can do a demonstration. We can get into more details about your specific needs and your desires to be able to implement this, or questions that you have about specific patients. I just got another referral from an acupuncturist down the street that had the power of neurofeedback impact his daughter and already getting referrals because now he knows that we're doing that at my wellness center. So there's a lot of ways that we can help you with grow and impact as many as possible in your area. So please don't hesitate to reach out to us. So now, as if you joined late, I didn't get to reiterate it, but if you have any questions, there's a Q&A button. You can put some questions directly in chat, but we're here to help you really just find the best solution that's for you and your patients and your community to get the best brain support. that's available out there. Data-backed, field-tested, and performance-first, right, Dr. Kevin?

Exactly.

That's it.

Well put.

All right.

Excellent job.

So I think we'll call it a night. All right. Thank you all for joining. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Dr. Butterfield.

Thank you guys. Seth, you did great. I'll talk to you.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

That's it for today's episode. Thanks for joining us for part 2 of this special featured training from the Better Brains, Better Futures podcast, a member of the Factor Podcast Network. We hope this 2-part series has given you a deeper understanding of how quantitative EEG brain mapping and neurofeedback are expanding the conversation around athletic performance, Concussion recovery and brain health. If you'd like to continue learning from Dr. Kevin Butterfield, be sure to revisit our episodes 115 and 116, where we explored the clinical foundations of neurofeedback and its applications across a variety of patient populations. As always, our goal here at Factor is to introduce you to emerging ideas, innovative technologies, and evidence-informed strategies that help you become a better clinician, And improve your patient outcomes. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with a colleague who is also passionate about advancing healthcare. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Hey guys, if you like what you heard today, I encourage you to visit our website at factor-store.com. That's spelled F-A-K-T-O-R-store.com. To find out more information about all that we have to offer. We have a variety of online offerings as well as our hands-on Factor Rehab System course scheduled in cities around the globe. Be sure to also check out our event calendar and bookmark any of these upcoming live webinar dates coming up in the near future so you can join us live. And of course, the biggest compliment we can receive is for you to help us spread the word to your friends, colleagues, and classmates. You'll find all the important links as well as info about our sponsors in the show notes, so be sure to check those out.