When Usain Bolt charges down the track one must be reminded that this event represents many years of dedication to one aim: to be the best. As Bolt recalls, “When I was young, I didn’t really think of anything other than sports.” (Frater 2008). It was at the age of twelve that Bolt was recognized as being at the top of his class for racing down a 100-meter track. After 9 years of focus, Bolt secured two gold medals at the Olympic games in Beijing in 2008 (see Fig. 1). We would argue that during this time a special relationship was being forged between the neocortex and cerebellum that propelled Bolt to victory, a victory that is no different from Albert Einstein’s receipt of the Nobel prize in physics at the age of 42.
So, how was the relationship between the neocortex and cerebellum configured in Usain Bolt? The brain stem sitting below the cerebellar cortex is inundated with CO2 receptors that monitor the gas exchange experienced by the body as one sleeps, sits, walks, runs, and so on (Band et al. 1980; Nattie et al. 1995; Oyamada et al. 1998; Pineda and Aghajanian 1997; Wise et al. 2004), and some of these receptors are situated at the cerebellar nuclei as well as the inferior olive (Nattie 1999; Xu and Frazier 2000; Xu et al. 1994; Xu et al. 2001; Zhang et al. 1998), which is known the regulate the plasticity at the cerebellar cortex via the presence and absence of complex spikes (Loyola et al. 2019) and which is used to fine-tune the rhythmicity of the musculature as Bolt performs his training trials. All this is coordinated by the neocortex which ‘commands’ the daily routines of training (Thach et al. 1992). And on the day of a competition at the sound of a gunshot, M1 of the neocortex issues a discharge that is sent to the skeletal muscles as well as to the cerebellum (Gibson et al. 2004; Hasanbegović 2024). At this point, the command signal is subjected to negligible ‘efference-copy’ adjustments, for all the years of training have perfected the synaptic weights at the cerebellum.
Humans exhale once every 2 to 4 strides depending on the speed of locomotion (Bramble and Carrier 1983). Note that quadrupeds are restricted to a 1 to 1 ratio for a breath per stride, whereas humans have a larger range of ratios but exhibit a preferred ratio of 1 breath to 2 strides. Bolt wins a 100-meter race because he can maintain a top speed of ~12 meters per second for much longer than other sprinters, and during this time he has a breath to stride ratio of 1 to 20, which is commanded by and communicated to his cerebellar-neocortical network, based on a performance that is over one decade in the making (Usain Bolt, Wikipedia 2024). The low breathing to stride ratio means that at the end of a sprint, Bolt needs to replenish his O2/CO2 balance much like an underwater free-diver. Note that information about stride is conveyed to the cerebellum via the proprioceptive, mossy fibre system (Fuchs and Kornhuber 1969; Gibson et al. 2004).
As is true for Albert Einstein who could rotate atoms and the universe in his mind to deduce fundamental scientific principles, Bolts could rotate the details of his body in his mind to stretch himself across the finish line at superhuman speeds (Johnson and Redish 2007; Usain Bolt, Wikipedia 2024). For both individuals, the same neural mechanisms are in play to create a high-performance automaton.
Figure 1: Usain Bolt celebrating a victory in London in 2013, an image that became iconic internationally.
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