The Handbook of Sport Neuroscience and Psychophysiology was conceptualized about three
years ago. Producing an expansive book that covered the broad fields of neuroscience and psychophysiology was both ambitious and challenging, especially in the context of athletes and sport. In
the end, I believe we have succeeded in producing a work that has sufficient depth and breadth to
satisfy potentially critical peers and colleagues as well as researchers, practitioners/clinicians, instructors and students. While the book is technical, it is also accessible and importantly, it presents
critical perspectives that are crucial to the advancement of evidence-based applied sport neuroscience and psychophysiology. In this introduction, synopses of the book’s chapters are presented.
The book is divided into four sections: (1) SECTION I, Fundamentals and Research in Sport
Neuroscience and Psychophysiology; (2) SECTION II, Applied Sport Neuroscience and Psychophysiology: Intervention and Mental Training; (3) SECTION III, Clinical Sport Neuroscience
and Psychophysiology; and (4) SECTION IV, Technology and Products in Sport Neuroscience
and Psychophysiology. Section I was designed to introduce readers to the basics, frameworks and
conceptual models of sport neuroscience and psychophysiology and the foundational research
that is informing researchers, practitioners and students as well as coaches and athletes. Authors
were selected on the basis of not only their stature in the field, research and publications, but
importantly their commitment to critical analysis of their own research findings and others’.
Chapter 2, The Neural Pathway of Sport Actions: From Seeing and Hearing to Doing: Perception-Action
Relationships by Cesari and Urgesi, and the first chapter in Section I, was a “wish” chapter of
mine. I wanted neuroscientists to describe a sport-specific action from the perspective of the
brain-mind-body-motor response system (imagine being inside the body in a traveling capsule as
in the cult movie of the 70s, the Fantastic Voyage) as it happens. What brain areas activate during a
sport action? What happens to the mind and body from the beginning to the end of such an action?
This chapter fills the bill in helping illuminate the complex chain of from seeing and hearing
to doing.
Chapter 3 by Balconi and Crivelli, Fundamentals of Electroencephalography and Optical Imaging for
Sport and Exercise Science: From the Laboratory to On-the-Playing-Field Acquired Evidence, focuses on
the use of electroencephalography (EEG) and cerebral optical imaging (functional Near-Infrared
Spectroscopy, [fNIRS]) techniques within the domain of sport and exercise sciences.