Effects of consecutive domestic and international tournaments on heart rate variability in an elite rugby sevens team

Objectives The purpose of this study was to evaluate heart rate variability and athlete self-report measures of recovery status (ASRM) in response to consecutive domestic and international tournaments among an elite rugby sevens team. Design Retrospective. Methods Olympic-level rugby sevens players (n = 10) recorded post-waking natural logarithm of the root mean square of successive differences (LnRMSSD) and ASRM (sleep quality, energy, soreness, recovery and mood) throughout a 1-week baseline period and daily thereafter throughout a domestic and subsequent international tournament, separated by five days. Linear mixed models and Hedge’s effect sizes ± 95% confidence interval (ES ± 95% CI) were used to evaluate variation in LnRMSSD and ASRM relative to baseline. Results Decrements in various ASRM were observed in response to both tournaments (ES = −0.80 ± 0.91 to −1.73 ± 1.03, p \u3c 0.05) and international travel (ES = −1.03 ± 0.93 to −1.70 ± 1.02, p \u3c 0.05) whereas decrements in LnRMSSD were only observed in response to the international tournament (ES = −0.89 ± 0.92 to −1.21 ± 0.96, p = 0.02–0.07). No clear differences in internal or external match-load parameters were observed between tournaments (ES = −0.35 ± 0.88 to 0.13 ± 0.88, p \u3e 0.05). Conclusions Greater decrements in cardiac-autonomic activity were observed in response to an international tournament relative to a domestic tournament, despite no difference in match-physical demands. Thus, factors separate from competition alone may impact players’ cardiac-autonomic response to an international tournament

More than a Metric:How Training Load is Used in Elite Sport for Athlete Management

Training load monitoring is a core aspect of modern-day sport science practice. Collecting, cleaning, analysing, interpreting, and disseminating load data is usually undertaken with a view to improve player performance and/or manage injury risk. To target these outcomes, practitioners attempt to optimise load at different stages throughout the training process, like adjusting individual sessions, planning day-to-day, periodising the season, and managing athletes with a long-term view. With greater investment in training load monitoring comes greater expectations, as stakeholders count on practitioners to transform data into informed, meaningful decisions. In this editorial we highlight how training load monitoring has many potential applications and cannot be simply reduced to one metric and/or calculation. With experience across a variety of sporting backgrounds, this editorial details the challenges and contextual factors that must be considered when interpreting such data. It further demonstrates the need for those working with athletes to develop strong communication channels with all stakeholders in the decision-making process. Importantly, this editorial highlights the complexity associated with using training load for managing injury risk and explores the potential for framing training load with a performance and training progression mindset.</p

Recidivism Treatment for Justice-Involved Veterans: Evaluating Adoption and Sustainment of Moral Reconation Therapy in the US Veterans Health Administration

Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT), an evidence-based intervention to reduce risk for criminal recidivism among justice-involved adults, was developed and primarily tested in correctional settings. Therefore, a better understanding of the implementation potential of MRT within non-correctional settings is needed. To address this gap in the literature, we evaluated the adoption and sustainment of MRT in the US Veterans Health Administration (VHA) following a national training initiative in fiscal years 2016 and 2017. In February 2019, surveys with 66 of the 78 VHA facilities that participated in the training were used to estimate the prevalence of MRT adoption and sustainment, and qualitative interviews with key informants from 20 facilities were used to identify factors associated with sustainment of MRT groups. Of the 66 facilities surveyed, the majority reported adopting (n = 52; 79%) and sustaining their MRT group until the time of the survey (n = 38; 58%). MRT sustainment was facilitated by strong intra-facility (e.g., between veterans justice and behavioral health services) and inter-agency collaborations (e.g., between VHA and criminal justice system stakeholders), which provided a reliable referral source to MRT groups, external incentives for patient engagement, and sufficient staffing to maintain groups. Additional facilitators of MRT sustainment were adaptations to the content and delivery of MRT for patients and screening of referrals to the groups. The findings provide guidance to clinics and healthcare systems that are seeking to implement MRT with justice-involved patient populations, and inform development of implementation strategies to be formally tested in future trials

Modelling the HRV response to training loads in elite rugby Sevens players

A systems modelling approach can be used to describe and optimise responses to training stimuli within individuals. However, the requirement for regular maximal performance testing has precluded the widespread implementation of such modelling approaches in team-sport settings. Heart rate variability (HRV) can be used to measure an athlete’s adaptation to training load, without disrupting the training process. As such, the aim of the current study was to assess whether chronic HRV responses, as a representative marker of training adaptation, could be predicted from the training loads undertaken by elite Rugby Sevens players. Eight international male players were followed prospectively throughout an eight-week pre-season period, with HRV and training loads (session-RPE [sRPE] and high-speed distance [HSD]) recorded daily. The Banister model was used to estimate vagally-mediated chronic HRV responses to training loads over the first four weeks (tuning dataset); these estimates were then used to predict chronic HRV responses in the subsequent four-week period (validation dataset). Across the tuning dataset, high correlations were observed between modelled and recorded HRV for both sRPE (r = 0.66 ± 0.32) and HSD measures (r = 0.69 ± 0.12). Across the sRPE validation dataset, seven of the eight athletes met the criterion for validity (typical error r\u3e0.30), compared to one athlete in the HSD validation dataset. The sRPE validation data produced likely lower mean bias values, and most likely higher Pearson correlations, compared to the HSD validation dataset. These data suggest that a systems theory approach can be used to accurately model chronic HRV responses to internal training loads within elite Rugby Sevens players, which may be useful for optimising the training process on an individual basis

A concerted appeal for international cooperation in preclinical stroke research

Special report.-- et al.Peer reviewe

Six years of demography data for 11 reef coral species

Scleractinian corals are colonial animals with a range of life history strategies, making up diverse species assemblages that define coral reefs. We tagged and tracked approximately 30 colonies from each of 11 species during seven trips spanning six years (2009-2015) in order to measure their vital rates and competitive interactions on the reef crest at Trimodal Reef, Lizard Island, Australia. Pairs of species were chosen from five growth forms where one species of the pair was locally rare (R) and the other common (C). The sampled growth forms were massive [Goniastrea pectinata (R) and G. retiformis (C)], digitate [Acropora humilis (R) and A. cf. digitifera (C)], corymbose [A. millepora (R) and A. nasuta (C)], tabular [A. cytherea (R) and A. hyacinthus (C)] and arborescent [A. robusta (R) and A. intermedia (C)]. An extra corymbose species with intermediate abundance, A. spathulata was included when it became apparent that A. millepora was too rare on the reef crest, making the 11 species in total. The tagged colonies were visited each year in the weeks prior to spawning. During visits, two or more observers each took 2-3 photographs of each tagged colony from directly above and on the horizontal plane with a scale plate to track planar area. Dead or missing colonies were recorded and new colonies tagged in order to maintain approximately 30 colonies per species throughout the six years of the study. In addition to tracking tagged corals, 30 fragments were collected from neighboring untagged colonies of each species for counting numbers of eggs per polyp (fecundity); and fragments of untagged colonies were brought into the laboratory where spawned eggs were collected for biomass and energy measurements. We also conducted surveys at the study site to generate size structure data for each species in several of the years. Each tagged colony photograph was digitized by at least two people. Therefore, we could examine sources of error in planar area for both photographers and outliners. Competitive interactions were recorded for a subset of species by measuring the margins of tagged colony outlines interacting with neighboring corals. The study was abruptly ended by Tropical Cyclone Nathan (Category 4) that killed all but nine of the over 300 tagged colonies in early 2015. Nonetheless, these data will be of use to other researchers interested in coral demography and coexistence, functional ecology, and parametrizing population, community and ecosystem models. The data set is not copyright restricted, and users should cite this paper when using the data.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Diagnosis of bipolar disorders and body mass index predict clustering based on similarities in cortical thickness-ENIGMA study in 2436 individuals

AIMS: Rates of obesity have reached epidemic proportions, especially among people with psychiatric disorders. While the effects of obesity on the brain are of major interest in medicine, they remain markedly under-researched in psychiatry. METHODS: We obtained body mass index (BMI) and magnetic resonance imaging-derived regional cortical thickness, surface area from 836 bipolar disorders (BD) and 1600 control individuals from 14 sites within the ENIGMA-BD Working Group. We identified regionally specific profiles of cortical thickness using K-means clustering and studied clinical characteristics associated with individual cortical profiles. RESULTS: We detected two clusters based on similarities among participants in cortical thickness. The lower thickness cluster (46.8% of the sample) showed thinner cortex, especially in the frontal and temporal lobes and was associated with diagnosis of BD, higher BMI, and older age. BD individuals in the low thickness cluster were more likely to have the diagnosis of bipolar disorder I and less likely to be treated with lithium. In contrast, clustering based on similarities in the cortical surface area was unrelated to BD or BMI and only tracked age and sex. CONCLUSIONS: We provide evidence that both BD and obesity are associated with similar alterations in cortical thickness, but not surface area. The fact that obesity increased the chance of having low cortical thickness could explain differences in cortical measures among people with BD. The thinner cortex in individuals with higher BMI, which was additive and similar to the BD-associated alterations, may suggest that treating obesity could lower the extent of cortical thinning in BD

An Indo-Pacifc coral spawning database

The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these data remain unpublished which limits our understanding of regional and global reproductive patterns. The Coral Spawning Database (CSD) collates much of these disparate data into a single place. The CSD includes 6178 observations (3085 of which were unpublished) of the time or day of spawning for over 300 scleractinian species in 61 genera from 101 sites in the Indo-Pacific. The goal of the CSD is to provide open access to coral spawning data to accelerate our understanding of coral reproductive biology and to provide a baseline against which to evaluate any future changes in reproductive phenology