UCSF researchers find Kershaw’s brain works like a monkey’s

[KamaAina]

http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/UCSF-researchers-find-Kershaw-s-brain-works-5807131.php

Even Clayton Kershaw, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitching ace, makes mistakes now and then. And although very few of his mistakes seemed to do Giants hitters much good this season, a team of San Francisco scientists found a way to take full advantage.

A new study by UCSF researchers revealed a tendency of the brain’s motion-control system to run off track in a predictable way when we try to perform the same practiced movement over and over. The scientists found the phenomenon first in macaque monkeys, then documented exactly the same thing in Kershaw’s game video....

In what turned out to be an early warm-up to the playoffs, UCSF scientists Kris Chaisanguanthum, Helen Shen and Philip Sabes delved into the motor-control system of the primate brain. Their study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, could help design better prosthetic limbs — or make robots that move less like robots and more like Kershaw....

That’s scant comfort to hitters. Maybe there are no data yet to prove it, but chances are the hitters rely as much as Kershaw on their brain constantly retuning. But there’s plenty of data to suggest he’s usually better at it than they are.

I guess a certain outfielder's brain works like a p(u)ig's.

[KamaAina]

1. They should have brought in the monkey in relief.