Exploring age-related differences in the relationship between spatial and temporal contributions to step length asymmetry during split-belt adaptation.

Gait adaptability is crucial for meeting environmental demands, and impaired gait adaptation increases fall risk, particularly in older adults. While prior research exists on older adults' gait adaptation, particularly in perturbation studies, the specific contributions of temporal and spatial adaptation strategies to step length asymmetry (SLA) during split-belt treadmill walking require further examination. This study fills this gap by evaluating how distinct adaptation strategies contribute to SLA in healthy young and older adults.

Physical Activity for Anxiety for Autistic People: A Systematic Review.

Clinical anxiety is a common comorbidity in autistic people. Due to the prevalence of anxiety in the autism population and the adverse effects it causes, there is a critical need to develop effective interventions which address anxiety symptoms for autistic people. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review was to examine the effectiveness of the use of physical activity as an intervention to reduce anxiety in autistic people.

Evaluating Postural Transition Movement Performance in Individuals with Essential Tremor via the Instrumented Timed Up and Go.

Flexibility in performing various movements like standing, walking, and turning is crucial for navigating dynamic environments in daily life. Individuals with essential tremor often experience movement difficulties that can affect these postural transitions, limiting mobility and independence. Yet, little research has examined the performance of postural transitions in people with essential tremor.

Cognitive Demands Influence Drop Jump Performance and Relationships With Leg Stiffness in Healthy Young Adults.

Holmes, HH, Downs Talmage, JL, Neely, KA, and Roper, JA. Cognitive demands influence drop jump performance and relationships with leg stiffness in healthy young adults. J Strength Cond Res 37(1): 74-83, 2023-Sports-relevant cognition influences neuromuscular control and sports performance.

Clinically Measuring Orofacial Somatosensation in a Cohort of Healthy Aging Adults.

Purpose: Humans experience the world through sensations of touch, taste, smell, vision, and audition. Alterations in sensory acuity occur across the adult life span in all types of sensation. The purpose of this study was to describe possible differences in lip and tongue somatosensation (sense of pressure) for healthy older adults using clinically available measurement tools as compared with previously published data using the same protocol.

Inorganic nitrate supplementation and blood flow restricted exercise tolerance in post-menopausal women.

Exercise tolerance appears to benefit most from dietary nitrate (NO) supplementation when muscle oxygen (O) availability is low. Using a double-blind, randomized cross-over design, we tested the hypothesis that acute NO supplementation would improve blood flow restricted exercise duration in post-menopausal women, a population with reduced endogenous nitric oxide bioavailability. Thirteen women (57-76 yr) performed rhythmic isometric handgrip contractions (10% MVC, 30 per min) during progressive forearm blood flow restriction (upper arm cuff gradually inflated 20 mmHg each min) on three study visits, with 7-10 days between visits.

Manual dexterity and strength and in young adults with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Manual motor deficits are common in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, it is unclear whether these impairments persist into adulthood. The aim of this study was to examine manual dexterity and strength in young adults with ADHD aged 18-25 years. Sixty-one individuals with confirmed ADHD and 56 adults without ADHD completed Purdue Pegboard tasks for manual dexterity and maximal hand- and pinch-grip tests for strength.

Ahead of the (ROC) Curve: A Statistical Approach to Utilizing Ex-Gaussian Parameters of Reaction Time in Diagnosing ADHD Across Three Developmental Periods.

Introduction: Performance on executive function (EF) tasks is only modestly predictive of a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), despite the common assumption that EF deficits are ubiquitous to the disorder. The current study sought to determine whether ex-Gaussian parameters of simple reaction time are better able to discriminate between children and adults with and without ADHD, compared with traditional measures of inhibitory control.

Methods: Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses and the area under the curve (AUC) were used to examine the ability of performance on two commonly used tasks of inhibitory control (i.

Speech motor control and orofacial point pressure sensation in adults with ADHD.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a predominant neurobehavioral disorder of childhood with motor and sensory symptoms often persisting into adulthood. Motor control theories highlight the importance of the bidirectional relationship between sensation and movement for maintaining skilled behaviors like speech. The impact of ADHD on speech in adults has not been well established.

Making the Most of It: Application of Planned Missingness Design to Increase the Efficiency of Diagnostic Assessment.

Multimethod assessment is recommended as "best practice" in clinical assessment and is often implemented through the combined use of symptom rating scales and structured interviews. While this approach increases confidence in the validity of assessment, it also increases burden, expense, and leads to the accumulation of redundant information. To address this problem, we evaluate the use a planned missingness design within the framework of adult Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) assessment.

Sex and Emotion Regulation Difficulties Contribute to Depression in Young Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Many young adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at risk for depression. Yet, questions remain about factors associated with the development of depression in young adults with ADHD. This study examined the effects of sex and emotion regulation difficulties on depression in a sample of young adults with (=172) and without (=730) ADHD.

Lexical frequency affects functional activation and accuracy in picture naming among older and younger adults.

As individuals age, they experience increased difficulties producing speech, especially with infrequent words. Older adults report that word retrieval difficulties frequently occur and are highly frustrating. However, little is known about how age affects the neural basis of language production.

Shared neural recruitment across working memory and motor control tasks as a function of task difficulty and age.

Past research suggests that working memory (WM) and motor control may engage similar cognitive and neural mechanisms in older adults, particularly when task difficulty increases. However, much of this evidence arises from comparisons across behavioral and imaging studies that test only one of the foregoing functional domains. The current study used fMRI within the same group of older adults to investigate whether WM and motor control recruit common mechanisms, and whether recruitment increased with task demand and age.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and callous-unemotional traits as moderators of conduct problems when examining impairment in emerging adults.

This study examines attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits as moderators of the association between conduct problems (CP) and young adult functioning. Young adults (n = 283; M = 20.82 years; 53.

Memory-guided force control in healthy younger and older adults.

Successful performance of a memory-guided motor task requires participants to store and then recall an accurate representation of the motor goal. Further, participants must monitor motor output to make adjustments in the absence of visual feedback. The goal of this study was to examine memory-guided grip force in healthy younger and older adults and compare it to performance on behavioral tasks of working memory.

Deficits in inhibitory force control in young adults with ADHD.

Poor inhibitory control is a well-established cognitive correlate of adults with ADHD. However, the simple reaction time (RT) task used in a majority of studies records performance errors only via the presence or absence of a single key press. This all-or-nothing response makes it impossible to capture subtle differences in underlying processes that shape performance.

Memory-guided force output is associated with self-reported ADHD symptoms in young adults.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed mental health disorder in childhood and persists into adulthood in up to 65 % of cases. ADHD is associated with adverse outcomes such as the ability to gain and maintain employment and is associated with an increased risk for substance abuse obesity workplace injuries and traffic accidents A majority of diagnosed children have motor deficits; however, few studies have examined motor deficits in young adults. This study provides a novel examination of visuomotor control of grip force in young adults with and without ADHD.

Motor Memory Deficits Contribute to Motor Impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Sensorimotor abnormalities are common in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, the processes underlying these deficits remain unclear. This study examined force production with and without visual feedback to determine if individuals with ASD can utilize internal representations to guide sustained force. Individuals with ASD showed a faster rate of force decay in the absence of visual feedback.

Non-target stimuli in the visual field influence movement preparation in upper-limb reaching.

The present work provides an empirical test of the Dynamic Field Theory of visuospatial cognition. The Dynamic Field Theory is a bi-stable neural network model applied to explain how visual information is integrated during the preparation of reaching responses (Erlhagen and Schöner). The dynamic field theory posits that motor cortices develop peaks of activation for each possible target in the visual field.

Functional Brain Activity Relates to 0-3 and 3-8 Hz Force Oscillations in Essential Tremor.

It is well-established that during goal-directed motor tasks, patients with essential tremor have increased oscillations in the 0-3 and 3-8 Hz bands. It remains unclear if these increased oscillations relate to activity in specific brain regions. This study used task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brain activity associated with oscillations in grip force output between patients with essential tremor, patients with Parkinson's disease who had clinically evident tremor, and healthy controls.

Force control deficits in individuals with Parkinson's disease, multiple systems atrophy, and progressive supranuclear palsy.

Objective: This study examined grip force and cognition in Parkinson's disease (PD), Parkinsonian variant of multiple system atrophy (MSAp), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), and healthy controls. PD is characterized by a slower rate of force increase and decrease and the production of abnormally large grip forces. Early-stage PD has difficulty with the rapid contraction and relaxation of hand muscles required for precision gripping.

Segregated and overlapping neural circuits exist for the production of static and dynamic precision grip force.

A central topic in sensorimotor neuroscience is the static-dynamic dichotomy that exists throughout the nervous system. Previous work examining motor unit synchronization reports that the activation strategy and timing of motor units differ for static and dynamic tasks. However, it remains unclear whether segregated or overlapping blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) activity exists in the brain for static and dynamic motor control.