Deceptive body movements reverse spatial cueing in soccer

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.The purpose of the experiments was to analyse the spatial cueing effects of the movements of soccer players executing normal and deceptive (step-over) turns with the ball. Stimuli comprised normal resolution or point-light video clips of soccer players dribbling a football towards the observer then turning right or left with the ball. Clips were curtailed before or on the turn (-160, -80, 0 or +80 ms) to examine the time course of direction prediction and spatial cueing effects. Participants were divided into higher-skilled (HS) and lower-skilled (LS) groups according to soccer experience. In experiment 1, accuracy on full video clips was higher than on point-light but results followed the same overall pattern. Both HS and LS groups correctly identified direction on normal moves at all occlusion levels. For deceptive moves, LS participants were significantly worse than chance and HS participants were somewhat more accurate but nevertheless substantially impaired. In experiment 2, point-light clips were used to cue a lateral target. HS and LS groups showed faster reaction times to targets that were congruent with the direction of normal turns, and to targets incongruent with the direction of deceptive turns. The reversed cueing by deceptive moves coincided with earlier kinematic events than cueing by normal moves. It is concluded that the body kinematics of soccer players generate spatial cueing effects when viewed from an opponent's perspective. This could create a reaction time advantage when anticipating the direction of a normal move. A deceptive move is designed to turn this cueing advantage into a disadvantage. Acting on the basis of advance information, the presence of deceptive moves primes responses in the wrong direction, which may be only partly mitigated by delaying a response until veridical cues emerge

Keeping an eye on the violinist: motor experts show superior timing consistency in a visual perception task

Common coding theory states that perception and action may reciprocally induce each other. Consequently, motor expertise should map onto perceptual consistency in specific tasks such as predicting the exact timing of a musical entry. To test this hypothesis, ten string musicians (motor experts), ten non-string musicians (visual experts), and ten non-musicians were asked to watch progressively occluded video recordings of a first violinist indicating entries to fellow members of a string quartet. Participants synchronised with the perceived timing of the musical entries. Results revealed significant effects of motor expertise on perception. Compared to visual experts and non-musicians, string players not only responded more accurately, but also with less timing variability. These findings provide evidence that motor experts’ consistency in movement execution—a key characteristic of expert motor performance—is mirrored in lower variability in perceptual judgements, indicating close links between action competence and perception

DNA methylation dynamics and MET1a-like gene expression changes during stress-induced pollen reprogramming to embryogenesis

This work was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (project BFU2011-23752). M.R.S. was a recipient of a postdoctoral Juan-de-la-Cierva grant (JCI-2007-123-1177). ÍNDICES DE IMPACTO DE LA REVISTA: Citas recibidas • Citas en Sopas: 66 (22-01-2023) • Citas en Web os Science: 63 (28-12-2023) JCR (Journal Impact Factor) • Año 2012 • Factor de impacto de la revista: 5.242 • Factor de impacto sin autocitas: 4.782 • Article influence score: 1.609 • Cuartil mayor: Q1 • Área: PLANT SCIENCES Cuartil: Q1 Posición en el área: 13/197 (Edicion: SCIE) SCImago Journal Rank • Año 2012 • Impacto SJR de la revista: 2.619 • Cuartil mayor: Q1 • Área: Plant Science Cuartil: Q1 Posición en el área: 15/417 • Área: Physiology Cuartil: Q1 Posición en el área: 15/185 Scopus CiteScore • Año 2012 • CiteScore de la revista: 8.5 • Área: Plant Science Percentil: 95 • Área: Physiology Percentil: 89 • Área: Medicine (all) Percentil: 90Stress-induced plant cell reprogramming involves changes in global genome organization, being the epigenetic modifications key factors in the regulation of genome flexibility. DNA methylation, accomplished by DNA methyltransferases, constitutes a prominent epigenetic modification of the chromatin fibre which is locked in a transcriptionally inactive conformation. Changes in DNA methylation accompany the reorganization of the nuclear architecture during plant cell differentiation and proliferation. After a stress treatment, in vitro-cultured microspores are reprogrammed and change their gametophytic developmental pathway towards embryogenesis, the process constituting a useful system of reprogramming in isolated cells for applied and basic research. Gene expression driven by developmental and stress cues often depends on DNA methylation; however, global DNA methylation and genome-wide expression patterns relationship is still poorly understood. In this work, the dynamics of DNA methylation patterns in relation to nuclear architecture and the expression of BnMET1a-like DNA methyltransferase genes have been analysed during pollen development and pollen reprogramming to embryogenesis in Brassica napus L. by a multidisciplinary approach. Results showed an epigenetic reprogramming after microspore embryogenesis induction which involved a decrease of global DNA methylation and its nuclear redistribution with the change of developmental programme and the activation of cell proliferation, while DNA methylation increases with pollen and embryo differentiation in a cell-type-specific manner. Changes in the presence, abundance, and distribution of BnMET1a-like transcripts highly correlated with variations in DNA methylation. Mature zygotic and pollen embryos presented analogous patterns of DNA methylation and MET1a-like expression, providing new evidence of the similarities between both developmental embryogenic programmes.Depto. de Genética, Fisiología y MicrobiologíaFac. de Ciencias BiológicasTRUEpu

Epidemiología de la fractura de cadera en Gran Canaria durante el quinquenio 2007-2011

Fundamento: La fractura de cadera constituye la complicación clínica más grave de la osteoporosis, por su elevada morbilidad y mortalidad. Método: Hemos estudiado las características epidemiológicas y demográficas de la totalidad de fractura de cadera por fragilidad ocurridas en pacientes de &Ge; 50 años de edad y recogidas en la isla de Gran Canaria durante el quinquenio 2007-2011, a partir de los Servicios de Admisión, Codificación, Urgencias y Traumatología de todos los hospitales de Gran Canaria, tanto de la red asistencial pública como privada. Resultados: Se recogieron un total de 2.222 fracturas de cadera de las cuales 1.593 (71,7%) se produjeron en mujeres y 629 (28,3%) en hombres. La relación mujer/hombre fue de 2,53. La media de la edad de producción de fracturas de cadera fue de 79 ± 9,7 años. A lo largo de los 5 años, el número total (hom-bres y mujeres) de fracturas de cadera anuales osciló entre 402 (año 2007) y 504 (año 2010). El número de fracturas de cadera aumentó con la edad hasta la década de los 90 años. La incidencia anual global fue de 150 casos/100.000 habitantes &Ge; 50 años, siendo en las mujeres de 205,4 casos respecto a la po-blación de este sexo y edad, y en los hombres de 89,1 casos respecto a la población de hombres &Ge; 50 años. Durante los meses de invierno se produjo el 29,7% del total de fracturas, un 7,5% más de las que ocurrieron durante los meses de verano (22,2%). Conclusiones: Durante el período 2007 a 2011, la incidencia de fractura de cadera en Gran Canaria se mantuvo más o menos estable, siendo en todos los años mayor en las mujeres que en los hombres, y aumentando con la edad hasta los 90 años. El mayor número de fracturas de cadera se produjo durante los meses de invierno, siendo semejante durante la primavera, verano y otoño