BLAIR DOWLER
At the Heart of
Human Performance
Dr. Scott Galster reviews
human performance data
and feedback. Photo by
WVU Medicine Marketing
and Communications.
After joining the newly established West Virginia University
(WVU) Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute one year ago, Dr.
Scott Galster is now leading the way in human performance re-
search and brain health programs at WVU Medicine and WVU.
Galster, a tenured professor in the department of physiol-
ogy, pharmacology and neuroscience at the WVU School of
Medicine, works under the direction of and alongside Dr. Ali
Rezai, the institute’s director. There, Galster has developed
AMP—or Athletes, Military and Patients—a comprehensive
program that works with the three different populations to
maximize brain health and performance.
“I came from the Air Force Research Laboratory, where
we were always looking to optimize the performance of our
airmen and war fighters across the Department of Defense,”
says Galster. “We began looking at elite athletes because they
made really good surrogates for military operators,
ExEdge especially in the special operations community,
and they didn’t get deployed. We could measure
The number
a lot of different things about them. One of the
of planes lost
in the Vietnam
opportunities with this is that we can take that
War led the
knowledge, continue to work with the military and
U.S. Navy to
also start applying it to the patient population.”
enhance pilot
According to Rezai, Galster and the human
performance
through the Top
performance team at WVU have over a decade of
Gun program. expertise with military and athletics safety and
performance optimization, creating the prime op-
Source: www.
defensenews. portunity for advancements. “This world-class
com team based at the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience
68
WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
“This world-class team based at
the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience
Institute is advancing the science of
human performance and recovery
and applying it to patients and the
general population to improve
health and wellness.”
Institute is advancing the science of human performance and
recovery and applying it to patients and general population to
improve health and wellness,” he says.
The AMP program, the first of its kind in West Virginia,
is proving to be much more diverse and robust than similar
programs, and it’s already making a difference in the lives of
those it targets—athletes, military members and patients—as
well as the general public.
Impacts on the Playing Field
Throughout his career, Galster has worked with numerous
NCAA and professional sports teams. At WVU, he and his
team now work with the football, women’s soccer, volleyball
and men’s basketball teams.
When it comes to athletics, the coaches, trainers and athletes
worry about fatigue, resilience and recovery. Fatigue is criti-
cal because the more fatigued an athlete is, the more prone to
injury he or she can be. With recovery, if an athlete works out
extremely hard, it’s important to get back to optimal shape in
the most efficient way possible.
“After a hard practice or workout, a football coach might
suggest an ice bath, but that might be the worst thing you
can do for a player at that time,” says Galster. “What we are
demonstrating is that there are other options that are avail-
able like flotation tanks, photobiomodulation, cryogenics and
meditation. It depends on what state you’re in and how you
need to recover. For example, if your sympathetic and para-
sympathetic nervous systems are out of balance, I’m going to