Proprioceptive accuracy is not associated with self-reported body awareness, body competence, and affect

Purpose Proprioception plays an essential role in motor control and in psychological functioning: it is the basis of body schema and the feeling of body ownership. There are individual differences in the processing accuracy of proprioceptive stimuli. Although proprioceptive acuity plays an important role in physical competence, there are contradictory findings concerning the role it plays in healthy psychological functioning. This study aims to shed more light on this association. Material and methods Sixty-eight young adults participated in this study. We estimated proprioceptive acuity by the reposition accuracy of elbow joint positions. We tested both dominant and non-dominant hands with two different versions of Joint Position Reproduction Test. Perceived physical competence, body awareness, and affectivity were assessed using questionnaires (Physical Competence scale of Body Consciousness Questionnaire, Somatic Absorption Scale, and Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule, respectively). Results No significant association between proprioceptive acuity and body awareness, perceived body competence, and positive and negative affect was found. Conclusion Proprioceptive acuity, measured in the elbow joint, does not play a substantial role in body awareness, perceived body competence, and affect

Psychological concomitants of CrossFit training: Does more exercise really make your everyday psychological functioning better?

The research aimed at studying relationships between characteristics of CrossFit training (time elapsed from starting with training, weekly session frequency) and indicators of well-being, self-esteem, body awareness, satisfaction with body image, and perceived body competence. Participants, 186 Norwegian individuals (57.5% female; mean age: 28.9±7.81 years) regularly participating in CrossFit, completed online surveys (WHO-5 Well-being Scale, PANAS, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Body Awareness Questionnaire, Body Image Ideals Questionnaire, Body Competence Scale, motivations for doing CrossFit). Weekly frequency of CrossFit sessions was not connected with positive affect (Kendall tau_b=-.02, p=.766), negative affect (-.01, p=.861), or well-being (.10, p=.068) in the correlation analysis. Similarly, overall CrossFit experience (duration x frequency) was not related to global self-esteem (Kendall tau_b=.01, p=.778), body awareness (-.04, p=.379), body image dissatisfaction (.04, p=.423), and body competence (-.07, p=.184). In the regression analysis, well-being was connected with male gender (β=-.205, p<.01), time elapsed from starting with CrossFit (β=-0.178, p<.05), dissatisfaction with body image (β=-.218, p<.01), and body awareness (β=.149, p<.05). Global self-esteem was related to age (β=.164, p<.05), body competence (β=.152, p<.05), and body image dissatisfaction (β=-.276, p<.001). CrossFit training was not connected with higher levels of psychological functioning (well-being, affect, body awareness, and self-esteem) and satisfaction with body image

Subjective and objective effects of coffee consumption — caffeine or expectations?

Impact of 5 mg/kg caffeine, chance of receiving caffeine (stimulus expectancies), and expectations of effects of caffeine (response expectancies) on objective (heart rate (HR), systolic/diastolic blood pressure (SBP/DBP), measures of heart rate variability (HRV), and reaction time (RT)) and subjective variables were investigated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment with a no-treatment group. Participants were 107 undergraduate university students (mean age 22.3 ± 3.96 years). Consumption of 5 mg/kg caffeine had an impact on participants’ SBP, standard deviation of normal heartbeat intervals, HR (decrease), and subjective experience 40 minutes later even after controlling for respective baseline values, stimulus and response expectancies, and habitual caffeine consumption. No effects on DBP, high frequency component of HRV, the ratio of low- and high-frequency, and RT were found. Beyond actual caffeine intake, response expectancy score was also a determinant of subjective experience which refers to a placebo component in the total effect. Actual autonomic (SBP, HR) changes and somatosensory amplification tendency, however, had no significant impact on subjective experience. Placebo reaction plays a role in the subjective changes caused by caffeine consumption but it has no impact on objective variables. Conditional vs deceptive administration of caffeine (i.e. stimulus expectancies) had no impact on any assessed variable

Super Pill is Less Effective than an Ordinary Mint in Altering Subjective Psychological Feeling States within a Few Minutes

Expectations shape human behavior. Initial drug use might be associated with information-based expectations. In this study, we presumed that changes in affect and perceived physical wellbeing will be stronger after receiving an active placebo (Tic Tac mint; n = 40), than a pure placebo (inert pill; n = 40) given as a mood-enhancing super pill. After baseline measures, participants completed a treatment-expectancy scale, ingested the mint/super pill, and attended to the effects over 3-minutes. Subsequently, they completed again the psychological tests. Expectancy scores were positive and did not differ between the groups. The pure placebo group increased in physical wellbeing but less than the active placebo group, which also showed an increase in positive affect. Negative affect decreased in both groups. The Tic Tac produced greater affective changes than the pure placebo. Since these are new findings on the ultra-short placebo effects on affect, the results might have relevance for drug-use studies

Physiological and psychological correlates of attention-related body sensations (tingling and warmth)

Body sensations play an essential role in the subjective evaluation of our physical health, illness, and healing. They are impacted by peripheral somatic and external processes, but they are also heavily modulated by mental processes, e.g., attention, motor control, and emotion. Body sensations, such as tingling, numbness, pulse, and warmth, can emerge due to simply focusing attention on a body part. It is however an open question, if these sensations are connected with actual peripheral changes or happen “only in the mind.” Here, we first tested whether the intensity of such attention-related body sensations is related to autonomic and somatomotor physiological processes and to psychological traits. In this study, attention-related body sensations were not significantly connected to changes in physiology, except warmth sensation, which was linked to decrease in muscle tension. Overall intensity of tingling significantly correlated with body awareness and tendentiously with body–mind practice. This strengthened the hypothesis that attention-related body sensations are more the result of top–down functions, and the connection with peripheral processes is weak. Here, we suggested a novel protocol to examine the effect of manipulating attention on body sensations, which together with our results and discussion can inspire future researches

Effect of X-Irradiation on Adenylate Cyclase Activity and Cyclic AMP Content of Primary Human Fibroblasts

Ionizing radiation provokes an increase of the cAMP level in several organs and body fluids. After reviewing the relevant literature we present the results of our own experiments on primary human fibroblasts. X-irradiation at doses of 0.5 and 2.5 Gy in vitro evoked a rapid and reversible increase of adenylate cyclase enzyme activity. A significant increase in cAMP level of these cells was also observed. Adenylate cyclase was usually localized basolaterally on the surface of unirradiated cells, while irradiation resulted in a modification of distribution, i.e., the enzyme activity also appeared in apical localization

Polar OwnIndex is not a reliable indicator of aerobic training status

Polar watches with heart rate monitoring function have become popular among recreational and professional athletes. In addition to monitoring functions, they calculate a specific index called OwnIndex which is claimed to measure aerobic training status. The current research attempted to shed light on the factors determining the OwnIndex. In Study 1, OwnIndex calculated by the RS-400 Polar watch was estimated using anthropometric (gender, age, height, weight), cardiovascular (resting HR, RMSSD), and exercise-related (maximal oxygen uptake, self-reported physical activity) data of 45 young adults. In Study 2, the OwnIndex was measured in 21 young adults twice, first with self-reported physical activity set to the lowest, then to the highest value. In the regression analysis (Study 1), the only significant predictor of OwnIndex was self-reported physical activity (R2 = 0.883; β = 0.915, p < 0.001). A significant difference with a large effect size (t(20) = −16.657, p <0.001, d = 3.635) and no significant correlation (r = −0.32; p = 0.155) were found between the OwnIndices calculated with different levels of activity in Study 2. As anthropometric and cardiac variables play a practically negligible role in the calculation of the OwnIndex, it cannot be considered an appropriate measure of aerobic fitness

Creatine monohydrate ingestion-related placebo e effects on brief anaerobic exercise performance. A laboratory investigation

People’s thoughts influence their action that led researchers to investigate the placebo effect in exercise performance. In the current study the placebo effects of creatine monohydrate on a one-minute anaerobic step-exercise performance were examined in a double blind laboratory inquiry. University students (n = 79, 64.5% women) were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: 1) intervention (ingestion of 80 mg/kg dissolved creatine monohydrate, n = 26), 2) placebo (ingestion of dissolved corn starch, thought to be creatine, n = 26), and 3) no-intervention control (ingestion of drinking water only, n = 27). After a baseline measurement, participants have consumed their respective drinks and 40 minutes later the 1-minute exercise was repeated. While analysis of variance revealed no group level differences in actual and perceived change in performance, the latter was linked to participants’ expectations regarding performance on the second exercise test in the correlation analysis. Two thirds of the participants in the current study believed that their performance would improve in the actual test-exercise. However, these expectations were not linked to creatine ingestion. ese ndings suggest that (1) a single dose of creatine monohydrate does not affect anaerobic performance, (2) in low-challenge and low-subjective-importance “articial” research conditions suffcient expectations could not be evoked, and probably due to the lack of creatine-related expectations the placebo eects did not emerge.