Ernie Cote

My research is historically at the intersection of neuroscience, mental health, and more recently- human performance. My earlier work focused on the neurobiology of trauma and early life stress using both animal models and human research approaches. These projects explored how stress during development can alter brain circuits involved in emotion, motivation, and reward. Understanding these mechanisms is critical because many psychiatric conditions, including depression and anxiety disorders, are strongly linked to adverse childhood experiences. Concurrent with my research career, I have been a licensed psychotherapist, practicing in NYC. These clinical observations motivate my research into the biological and cognitive mechanisms underlying mental health disorders, with the goal of developing new approaches to treatment. More recently, my work has expanded into the neuroscience of mental performance and optimal functioning in athletes, sparked by my personal hobbies in martial arts. Competitive fighters and other high-performance athletes operate in environments that place extreme demands on attention, emotional regulation, and decision making under pressure. Despite the importance of these cognitive and emotional skills, the neuroscience of peak performance in combat sports and other high-intensity athletics remains largely unexplored, and I believe that any insights we gain from researching these topics could be translated to the clinical populations in mental health. My current research focuses on understanding the brain states that support “flow,” attention, and emotional regulation during performance. Using electroencephalography (EEG) and neurofeedback methods, I study how patterns of brain activity relate to performance under pressure. The goal of this work is to identify neural markers of optimal mental performance and develop training approaches that help athletes regulate their cognitive and emotional states more effectively.

July 2020