Read the Written Works of Neurologist, Kenneth Van Gross, MD

By Kenneth Bruce Van Gross, M.D.
April 20, 2020

In late 2019, in Primal Neuroanthropology – A Neuro-Sports Hypothesis, Kenneth Bruce Van Gross, M.D. proposes that Sports profoundly reflects who we are and where we came from historically.

Primal Neuroanthropology is a new hypothesis involving evolutionary neurology, psychology and psychiatry. It speaks to the unconsciousness of Sports. We are aware of the athlete’s individual motives and the larger structure of games and leagues. However, we have missed the “Total Outline” of the neurological, psychosocial and evolutionary construction just noted in the numerous unconscious actions of those participating in athletics, games and the general “playing field” called Sports.
It is contended that Sports gestures, postures, movements and expressions are critical components of the primitive consciousness if not unconsciousness of the Sports performer.
With Sports, in adopting the exaggerated movements of certain genetic and neurodegenerative diseases, the “devil may care” self-injurious actions of the star shooting guard, the freezing in Parkinson’s to steady the tourney winning golfer before a winning putt, or the involuntary dance like movement of Huntington’s simulated by the jittery running back eluding a tackler, we are doing a replay of many of these basal ganglia mediated gestures, postures, habits, and behavioral actions, as unconsciously as have been the very evolutionary, ontological and involutional processes such movements reflect.
The neurodegenerative processes at play in such conditions specifically target the most phylogenetically ancient components of the brain, including the substantia nigra and the striatum, and the marked involution of these brain structures is accompanied by severe motor and cognitive deficits. Studies of neural mechanisms involved in these akinetic and hyperkinetic disorders have led to a complete reevaluation of the current model of the functional organization of the basal ganglia in both health and disease.
So, we evolve, we grow, we involute, we exhibit these phenomena that link all these processes. The basal ganglia contain this primordial motor circuitry that reveals an ancient phylogeny and link to automatic behavior hovering below our consciousness.
The drive to fall contained perhaps in our brain stem, cerebellum and limbic system…...the drive to experience balance altering movement (B.A.M)…where do these “instincts come from”? These men, who jump off mountains wearing winged suits, women who strive beyond human effort in Olympic level gymnastics are in some way addicted to the rush of flight. They were all featured on 60 Minutes. They are not called “birdmen” or air borne competitive ballerinas for nothing…................and the ramifications are quite related to the Primal Neuroanthropologyof Sports.

Now, in December of 2019, archaeologist Maxime Aubert and his team utilizing U-series dating report that the rock art scene at LeangBulu’ Sipong 4 in Sulawesi, Indonesia that they uncovered is the oldest known parietal art created by modern humans. The portrayal of multiple hunters confronting at least two separate prey species possibly suggests a game drive, a communal hunt in which animals are indiscriminately flushed from cover and directed towards waiting hunters—if this is the case, this scene would be the oldest known visual record of a hunting strategy.