Effect of meprobamate on the vestibulosensory and vestibular somatic reaction

The influence of meprobamate on the vestibular illusion of counter-rotation, movement coordination and vertical writing was investigated by a double blind trial method and placebo. The results confirm the possibility of the meprobamate application for prophylaxis and correction of vestibular disturbances

Tai-chi for residential patients with schizophrenia on movement coordination, negative symptoms, and functioning: a pilot randomized controlled trial

Objective. Patients with schizophrenia residing at institutions often suffer from negative symptoms, motor, and functional impairments more severe than their noninstitutionalized counterparts. Tai-chi emphasizes body relaxation, alertness, and movement coordination with benefits to balance, focus, and stress relief. This pilot study explored the efficacy of Tai-chi on movement coordination, negative symptoms, and functioning disabilities towards schizophrenia. Methods. A randomized waitlist control design was adopted, where participants were randomized to receive either the 6-week Tai-chi program and standard residential care or only the latter. 30 Chinese patients with schizophrenia were recruited from a rehabilitation residency. All were assessed on movement coordination, negative symptoms, and functional disabilities at baseline, following intervention and 6 weeks after intervention. Results. Tai-chi buffered from deteriorations in movement coordination and interpersonal functioning, the latter with sustained effectiveness 6 weeks after the class was ended. Controls showed marked deteriorations in those areas. The Tai-chi group also experienced fewer disruptions to life activities at the 6-week maintenance. There was no significant improvement in negative symptoms after Tai-chi. Conclusions. This study demonstrated encouraging benefits of Tai-chi in preventing deteriorations in movement coordination and interpersonal functioning for residential patients with schizophrenia. The ease of implementation facilitates promotion at institutional psychiatric services.published_or_final_versio

WHETHER SHORT-TERM EXPERIENCE CAN ENHANCE PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR LEARNING IN A MOVING (VEHICULAR) GAP INTERCEPTION TASK

Background: Accurate perceptual judgment and skilful movement coordination are required to perform sports specific or everyday perceptual-motor tasks. In ball catching, for example, a catcher must judge the spatial and temporal aspects of the flying ball and adjust his locomotion according to the changing situation. Likewise, an everyday perceptual-motor task that requires perceptual accuracy and skilful movement coordination is to intercept a gap between moving vehicles as a pedestrian (i.e., road-crossing). Purpose: Experience (both short-term and long-term) is important in learning to perform such everyday perceptual-motor skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of short-term experience on pedestrians’ perceptual decisions and movement coordination in an experimental road-crossing task. Methods: Twenty-two young adults of Kunsan National University participated voluntarily in the experiment and performed a moving gap interception task (road-crossing) in the virtual environment. Results: Participants’ perceptual decisions improved and movement coordination during gap interception enhanced with short-term experience. Conclusion: this study concluded that perception and movement coordination can be calibrated with experience even in short-time scale. Also, perceptual accuracy and enhanced motor-ability is important to increase pedestrians’ safety in road-crossing and in other similar everyday perceptual-motor tasks

The relationship of arm muscle strength, limb muscle explosive and movement coordination with swimming speed bracelet on students of physical education, health and recreation

This study aims to determined the relationship arm muscle strength, limb muscle explosive and movement coordination with coordination with swimming speed bracelet on students PENJASKESREK at Serambi Mekkah University. The population in this studied were all student PENJASKESREK at Serambi Mekkah University. Based on the purposive sampling technique, the samples totaling 30 students who had passed the T.P. Basic Swimming and T.P. Advanced Swimming. Based on the results of data analysis, it was found that arm muscle strength gave a relationship of 0.52 to the speed of breaststroke swimming in students, limb muscle explosive gave a relationship of 0.44 to the speed of breaststroke swimming to students, movement coordination gave a relationship of 0,42 with the speed of breaststroke swimming to students. The concluded that arm muscle strength, limb muscle explosive and movement coordination were related by 0.79 with the breaststroke swimming speed on Students at Serambi Mekkah University. So the hypothesis that the author proposed was accepted as true

Neural Dynamics of Saccadic and Smooth Pursuit Eye Movement Coordination during Visual Tracking of Unpredictably Moving Targets

How does the brain use eye movements to track objects that move in unpredictable directions and speeds? Saccadic eye movements rapidly foveate peripheral visual or auditory targets and smooth pursuit eye movements keep the fovea pointed toward an attended moving target. Analyses of tracking data in monkeys and humans reveal systematic deviations from predictions of the simplest model of saccade-pursuit interactions, which would use no interactions other than common target selection and recruitment of shared motoneurons. Instead, saccadic and smooth pursuit movements cooperate to cancel errors of gaze position and velocity, and thus to maximize target visibility through time. How are these two systems coordinated to promote visual localization and identification of moving targets? How are saccades calibrated to correctly foveate a target despite its continued motion during the saccade? A neural model proposes answers to such questions. The modeled interactions encompass motion processing areas MT, MST, FPA, DLPN and NRTP; saccade planning and execution areas FEF and SC; the saccadic generator in the brain stem; and the cerebellum. Simulations illustrate the model’s ability to functionally explain and quantitatively simulate anatomical, neurophysiological and behavioral data about SAC-SPEM tracking.National Science Foundation (SBE-0354378); Office of Naval Research (N00014-01-1-0624

A Dynamical Systems Analysis of Movement Coordination Models

In this thesis, we present a dynamical systems analysis of models of movement coordination, namely the Haken-Kelso-Bunz (HKB) model and the Jirsa-Kelso excitator (JKE). The dynamical properties of the models that can describe various phenomena in discrete and rhythmic movements have been explored in the models' parameter space. The dynamics of amplitude-phase approximation of the single HKB oscillator has been investigated. Furthermore, an approximated version of the scaled JKE system has been proposed and analysed. The canard phenomena in the JKE system has been analysed. A combination of slow-fast analysis, projection onto the Poincare sphere and blow-up method has been suggested to explain the dynamical mechanisms organising the canard cycles in JKE system, which have been shown to have different properties comparing to the classical canards known for the equivalent FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) model. Different approaches to de fining the maximal canard periodic solution have been presented and compared. The model of two HKB oscillators coupled by a neurologically motivated function, involving the effect of time-delay and weighted self- and mutual-feedback, has been analysed. The periodic regimes of the model have been shown to capture well the frequency-induced drop of oscillation amplitude and loss of anti-phase stability that have been experimentally observed in many rhythmic movements and by which the development of the HKB model has been inspired. The model has also been demonstrated to support a dynamic regime of stationary bistability with the absence of periodic regimes that can be used to describe discrete movement behaviours.This work was supported by The Higher Committee For Education Development in Iraq (HCED) and the University of Mosul

The Examination of Slo-pitch Hitting Movement Coordination

This study developed an interdisciplinary approach by utilizing the principles of ecological task analysis and movement coordination from areas of motor leaning and biomechanics to examine the skill of slo-pitch softball hitting. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of a task constraint, stride technique, and an environmental constraint, pitched ball location, on the participants’ movement patterns. Ten elite male softball players participated in the study and a two-way ANOVA of 2 locations of pitch (inside and outside) x 3 strides (open, parallel and closed) repeated measure study was conducted. The results showed that participants demonstrated different joint movements and different coordination patterns in slo-pitch hitting. Hence, this study supports the rationale of ecological task analysis. Further, a Euclidean distance analysis was conducted to evaluate the degree of dissimilarity between the individual and group mean results in attempt to better understand the generalizability. The results indicated that participants generally showed a low degree of dissimilarity; hence, coaches and educators may apply the findings to other players. A similar interdisciplinary approach is warranted for future research studies on other sport skills or health conditions in order to better understand the mechanics of human motion

A Perception-Action Approach to Rhythmic Movement Coordination

Thesis (PhD) - Indiana University, Psychology, 2005Coordinated rhythmic movement is very specifically structured in humans. 0° mean relative phase (the two oscillating limbs doing the same thing at the same time) is easy and stable; 180° (the two limbs doing the opposite thing at the same time) is less stable; and no other relative phase is stable without training. The present study explored the identity and role of the perceptual information used in rhythmic movement coordination tasks in creating this pattern. 4 participants were trained to improve their perceptual resolution of 90° over a two week period. This training resulted in improved movement stability in a rhythmic movement coordination task, without additional practice of the task itself. Improved ability to detect the information at 90° allowed for improved performance in a movement task at 90°. In a second study, we systematically perturbed three aspects of the coordinated motion of two dots on a computer screen, and tested the effect of these perturbations on the same 4 participants. In line with predictions based on previous modeling results, perturbations that disrupted perceptual information about peak velocity and peak amplitude disrupted participants' ability to perform the task; this information allows rescaling of velocity information and is vital for stable perception of the underlying information (the relative direction of motion). Perturbations that increased the magnitude of the relative speed between the dots added noise to the task, again as predicted. Relative direction proved impossible to perturb, independently of mean relative phase, suggesting it has a vital role in the task. We conclude that the information used in rhythmic movement coordination tasks is both the phase (position within a cycle) and the relative phase, instantiated as the relative direction of motion. Movement stability is a function of perceptual stability, and improving the latter improves the former. The results are explained within a perception-action framework, in which perceptual information is an integral part of the organization of a perception-action dynamical system

Analysis of finger movement coordination during the Variable Dexterity Test and comparative activities of daily living

Background/Aims: This study aimed to analyse and compare finger coordination patterns during the performance of the Variable Dexterity Test (VDT) and comparative daily tasks. Methods: An optoelectronic system was used to record the joint angles of 10 healthy participants performing the VDT and daily tasks. Joint angles from digits 1 to 5 were cross-correlated across the tasks, providing a measure of the degree of finger movement coordination. Results: Correlation coefficients showed identifiable coordination patterns among the finger movements under analysis. Low correlation coefficients suggested the presence of independent finger movements during the performance of the selected tasks. Conclusions: Finger movement coordination patterns observed during activities of daily living are comparable with the patterns observed during performance of the Variable Dexterity Test for the three grasping patterns analysed in the stud

Emergent modular neural control drives coordinated motor actions.

A remarkable feature of motor control is the ability to coordinate movements across distinct body parts into a consistent, skilled action. To reach and grasp an object, 'gross' arm and 'fine' dexterous movements must be coordinated as a single action. How the nervous system achieves this coordination is currently unknown. One possibility is that, with training, gross and fine movements are co-optimized to produce a coordinated action; alternatively, gross and fine movements may be modularly refined to function together. To address this question, we recorded neural activity in the primary motor cortex and dorsolateral striatum during reach-to-grasp skill learning in rats. During learning, the refinement of fine and gross movements was behaviorally and neurally dissociable. Furthermore, inactivation of the primary motor cortex and dorsolateral striatum had distinct effects on skilled fine and gross movements. Our results indicate that skilled movement coordination is achieved through emergent modular neural control