Military tactical adaptive decision making during simulated military operational stress is influenced by personality, resilience, aerobic fitness, and neurocognitive function.

Unlabelled: Laboratory-based studies designed to mimic combat or military field training have consistently demonstrated deleterious effects on warfighter's physical, cognitive, and emotional performance during simulated military operational stress (SMOS).

Purpose: The present investigation sought to determine the impact of a 48-h simulated military operational stress (SMOS) on military tactical adaptive decision making, and the influence of select psychological, physical performance, cognitive, and physiological outcome measures on decision making performance.

Methods: Male ( = 48, 26.

Biobehavioral Insights into Adaptive Behavior in Complex and Dynamic Operational Settings: Lessons learned from the Soldier Performance and Effective, Adaptable Response Task.

The purpose of this study was to explore the biobehavioral correlates of adaptive behavior in the context of a standardized laboratory-based mission-relevant challenge [the Soldier Performance and Effective, Adaptable Response (SPEAR) task]. Participants were 26 healthy male volunteers (M = 34.85 years, SD = 4.

The influence of social evaluation on cerebral cortical activity and motor performance: a study of "Real-Life" competition.

Motor performance in a social evaluative environment was examined in participants (N = 19) who completed a pistol shooting task under both performance-alone (PA) and competitive (C) conditions. Electroencephalographic (EEG), autonomic, and psychoendocrine activity were recorded in addition to kinematic measures of the aiming behavior. State anxiety, heart rate, and cortisol were modestly elevated during C and accompanied by relative desynchrony of high-alpha power, increased cortico-cortical communication between motor and non-motor regions, and degradation of the fluency of aiming trajectory, but maintenance of performance outcome (i.

Beyond age and gender: relationships between cortical and subcortical brain volume and cognitive-motor abilities in school-age children.

There is growing evidence that cognitive and motor functions are interrelated and may rely on the development of the same cortical and subcortical neural structures. However, no study to date has examined the relationships between brain volume, cognitive ability, and motor ability in typically developing children. The NIH MRI Study of Normal Brain Development consists of a large, longitudinal database of structural MRI and performance measures from a battery of neuropsychological assessments from typically developing children.

Regular and random components in aiming-point trajectory during rifle aiming and shooting.

The authors examined the kinematic qualities of the aiming trajectory as related to expertise. In all, 2 phases of the trajectory were discriminated. The first phase was regular approximation to the target accompanied by substantial fluctuations obeying the Weber-Fechner law.

Electroencephalographic coherence during visuomotor performance: a comparison of cortico-cortical communication in experts and novices.

The authors assessed electroencephalographic coherence to determine the relation between cortico-cortical communication and visuomotor skill in 15 expert and 21 novice rifle shooters. They then calculated coherence and phase angles among the prefrontal (F3, F4) and ipsilateral cortical regions (central, temporal, parietal, occipital) during the aiming period for the theta (4-7 Hz), low-alpha (8-10 Hz), high-alpha (11-13 Hz), low-beta (14-22 Hz), high-beta (23-35 Hz), and gamma (36-44 Hz) bands. The authors subjected them separately to a series of analyses of variance (Group X Hemisphere X Region X Epoch).

Visuomotor expertise and dimensional complexity of cerebral cortical activity.

Purpose: This study employed the correlation dimension (D2) to examine whether visuomotor expertise was inversely related to the complexity of cerebral cortical activity.

Method: Expert rifle shooters (N = 15) and novices (N = 21) completed 40 shots in the standing position during which the electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded at 10 sites (F3, F4, C3, C4, T3, T4, P3, P4, O1, and O2) during a 5-s aiming period prior to trigger pull. D2 was derived for each trial and averaged across shots.

The unique relation of physical activity to executive function in older men and women.

Purpose: To determine whether physical activity participation was specifically and positively associated with executive function in older individuals after accounting for age, education, and IQ.

Methods: Participants were 120 healthy men (N = 38) and women (N = 82) aged 65-92 yr (mean = 78.9, SD = 5.

How do job stress and ergonomic factors impact clinic visits in acute low back pain? A prospective study.

Objective: We sought to identify whether ergonomic factors, job stress, health behavior, and emotional distress are prospectively related to return visits for acute back pain.

Methods: A total of 368 U.S.

Workstyle: development of a measure of response to work in those with upper extremity pain.

Workstyle or the behavioral, cognitive, and physiological response that can occur in some individuals to increases in work demands has been proposed to help explain the link between ergonomic and psychosocial factors in the exacerbation of work-related upper extremity symptoms. Currently, there is no measure of this construct, hindering research on its potential link to work related upper extremity problems in the workplace. The present study describes the development and psychometric properties of a measure of workstyle.

Electroencephalographic studies of skilled psychomotor performance.

Measurements based on the EEG have featured prominently in shaping present-day concepts of the neurocognitive aspects of skilled performance. The techniques include measurements of spectral power, interelectrode coherence, event-related potential components such as the P300, slow potentials, and the method of cognitive inference. The advantages offered by EEG-based approaches lies in their spatiotemporal resolution (potentially 1 mm and less than 1 millisecond, respectively) and the potential to preserve ecological validity, i.

Working with low back pain: problem-solving orientation and function.

A number of ergonomic, workplace and individual psychosocial factors and health behaviors have been associated with the onset, exacerbation and/or maintenance of low back pain (LBP). The functional impact of these factors may be influenced by how a worker approaches problems in general. The present study was conducted to determine whether problem-solving orientation was associated with physical and mental health outcomes in fully employed workers (soldiers) reporting a history of LBP in the past year.