A Glimpse Inside the Brain’s Black Box: Understanding the Role of Neuroscience in Criminal Sentencing

This Article begins by discussing what neuroscience and the smaller associated field of study, neuropsychology, are and what they can tell us about an individual. It then recounts a brief history of sentencing in the United States. Additionally, it expounds on how the legal system currently utilizes neuroscience in the courts, noting specifically the ways in which neuroscience can be presented during the sentencing phase of trial. Finally, it discusses the use of neuroscience as a mitigating factor during sentencing and how judges can use neuroscience to combat their implicit biases

Improving Trip- and Slip-Resisting Skills in Older People:Perturbation Dose Matters

Aging negatively affects balance recovery responses after trips and slips. We hypothesize that older people can benefit from brief treadmill-based trip and slip perturbation exposure despite reduced muscular capacities, but with neuropathology, their responsiveness to these perturbations will be decreased. Thus, to facilitate long-term benefits and their generalizability to everyday life, one needs to consider the individual threshold for perturbation dose

Improving Trip- and Slip-Resisting Skills in Older People: Perturbation Dose Matters

Aging negatively affects balance recovery responses after trips and slips. We hypothesize that older people can benefit from brief treadmill-based trip and slip perturbation exposure despite reduced muscular capacities, but with neuropathology, their responsiveness to these perturbations will be decreased. Thus, to facilitate long-term benefits and their generalizability to everyday life, one needs to consider the individual threshold for perturbation dose. This is a non-final version of an article published in final form in Exercise and Sport Sciences Review

Distributed Bio-inspired Humanoid Posture Control

This paper presents an innovative distributed bio-inspired posture control strategy for a humanoid, employing a balance control system DEC (Disturbance Estimation and Compensation). Its inherently modular structure could potentially lead to conflicts among modules, as already shown in literature. A distributed control strategy is presented here, whose underlying idea is to let only one module at a time perform balancing, whilst the other joints are controlled to be at a fixed position. Modules agree, in a distributed fashion, on which module to enable, by iterating a max-consensus protocol. Simulations performed with a triple inverted pendulum model show that this approach limits the conflicts among modules while achieving the desired posture and allows for saving energy while performing the task. This comes at the cost of a higher rise time.Comment: 2019 41st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC

The Relationship between Force Platform Measures and Total Body Center of Mass

The ability of a person to maintain stable posture is essential for activities of daily living. Research in this field has evolved to include sensitive assessment technology including force platforms and 3-dimensional kinematic motion analysis systems. Although many studies have investigated postural stability under the auspice of posturography and the use of force platforms, relatively few have incorporated kinematic motion analysis techniques. Furthermore, of the studies that have utilized a multivariate research model, none have sought to identify the relationship between force platform measures including both the variation of movement of the x- and y-coordinates of the center of pressure (COP), and the 3-dimensional coordinates of the total body center of mass (COM). This study used a descriptive design to evaluate the relationship between force platform measures and the kinematic measures dealing with the total body COM in 14 healthy participants (height = 1.70 ± 0.09 m, mass = 67.7 ± 9.9 kg; age = 24.9 ± 3.8 yrs). Intraclass correlations (ICC) and standard error of measurements (SEM) were determined for common variables of interest used in standard posturography models. The results suggest that the variation of the excursion of the COP coordinates best represent the variation of the total body COM in the x- and y-directions. There was a force platform measure that correlated significantly with the vertical component of total body COM in only 3 of the 8 conditions. The ICC values obtained when analyzing individual conditions revealed that the variation in the force measurements were much more reliable than those representing the variation in movement of the COP, suggesting a need for the development of higher order methods of modeling 3-dimensional COM information from force platforms

How a plantar pressure-based, tongue-placed tactile biofeedback modifies postural control mechanisms during quiet standing

The purpose of the present study was to determine the effects of a plantar pressure-based, tongue-placed tactile biofeedback on postural control mechanisms during quiet standing. To this aim, sixteen young healthy adults were asked to stand as immobile as possible with their eyes closed in two conditions of No-biofeedback and Biofeedback. Centre of foot pressure (CoP) displacements, recorded using a force platform, were used to compute the horizontal displacements of the vertical projection the centre of gravity (CoGh) and those of the difference between the CoP and the vertical projection of the CoG (CoP-CoGv). Altogether, the present findings suggest that the main way the plantar pressure-based, tongue-placed tactile biofeedback improves postural control during quiet standing is via both a reduction of the correction thresholds and an increased efficiency of the corrective mechanism involving the CoGh displacements

Postural control: learning to balance and responses to mechanical and sensory perturbations

The purpose of the current research was to examine how a novel balance task is learnt by individuals with a mature neurological system, and to investigate the responses of experienced hand balancers to mechanical and sensory perturbations. Balance in each posture was assessed by various techniques, including: traditional measures of centre of pressure, nonlinear time series analysis of centre of pressure, estimates of feedback time delay from cross correlations and delayed regression models, and calculation of small, medium, and large movement corrections. Data from this study suggests that the best balance metric for distinguishing between each of the balance conditions was the traditional balance measure of sway velocity. However, sway velocity cannot provide any further information on the underlying process of balance. Nonlinear measures of balance offer insight into the underlying deterministic processes that control balance, offering measures of system determinism, complexity, and predictability. Assessments of feedback time delay and movement corrections provide both an insight into the control of posture and help distinguish one condition from another. Both feedback time delay and movement corrections and magnitudes may be used simultaneously to delve further into the control of posture. Delayed regression models seem to be an appropriate and useful tool for estimating feedback time delays during balance. Findings support the use of the third term in the adapted regression model as a means of estimating the effect of passive stiffness on feedback time delay. Generally, with increased duration in handstand subjects displayed reduced sway as measured by traditional measures of balance. A more marked change in nonlinear measures of balance can be seen, with quicker reductions in variance for some nonlinear measures of balance than in the traditional measures. It may be that more pronounced changes in nonlinear measures represent changes in the subjects underlying process of postural control, whereas less pronounced changes in traditional measures relate more to their general ability or performance in the balance task

Respiratory, postural and spatio-kinetic motor stabilization, internal models, top-down timed motor coordination and expanded cerebello-cerebral circuitry: a review

Human dexterity, bipedality, and song/speech vocalization in Homo are reviewed within a motor evolution perspective in regard to 

(i) brain expansion in cerebello-cerebral circuitry, 
(ii) enhanced predictive internal modeling of body kinematics, body kinetics and action organization, 
(iii) motor mastery due to prolonged practice, 
(iv) task-determined top-down, and accurately timed feedforward motor adjustment of multiple-body/artifact elements, and 
(v) reduction in automatic preflex/spinal reflex mechanisms that would otherwise restrict such top-down processes. 

Dual-task interference and developmental neuroimaging research argues that such internal modeling based motor capabilities are concomitant with the evolution of 
(vi) enhanced attentional, executive function and other high-level cognitive processes, and that 
(vii) these provide dexterity, bipedality and vocalization with effector nonspecific neural resources. 

The possibility is also raised that such neural resources could 
(viii) underlie human internal model based nonmotor cognitions. 
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Vibration as an exercise modality: how it may work, and what its potential might be

Whilst exposure to vibration is traditionally regarded as perilous, recent research has focussed on potential benefits. Here, the physical principles of forced oscillations are discussed in relation to vibration as an exercise modality. Acute physiological responses to isolated tendon and muscle vibration and to whole body vibration exercise are reviewed, as well as the training effects upon the musculature, bone mineral density and posture. Possible applications in sports and medicine are discussed. Evidence suggests that acute vibration exercise seems to elicit a specific warm-up effect, and that vibration training seems to improve muscle power, although the potential benefits over traditional forms of resistive exercise are still unclear. Vibration training also seems to improve balance in sub-populations prone to fall, such as frail elderly people. Moreover, literature suggests that vibration is beneficial to reduce chronic lower back pain and other types of pain. Other future indications are perceivable