Reaction Time and Academic Performance: An Association to Determine The Cognitive Status of First Year Medical Students

Background: Reaction time a pshychomotor test is widelyused in cognitive neuroscience. cognitive functions of humanbrain includes eg. attention, perception, memory, intelligencyetc., all these affect the academics performance, learning,mental processing and motor performance. Reaction time asimple test can measures the time of mental informationprocessing and motor response to it .The mental processingtime is a main factor to affect the academics performance.Aim: To find the relation between audio-visual reaction timeand academic performance for assessing the cognitive statusof first year medical students.Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study wasconducted in the Department of Physiology, RUHS College ofMedical Sciences, Jaipur from January 2018 to March 2018. Atotal of 64 first year MBBS healthy medical students of agegroup 18-20 years were enrolled in this study (males-36,females-28). The test was performed on Audio Visual ReactionTime (AVRT) machine of Medisystems by pressing the switchas soon as she/he saw the light for VRT or heard the sound forART. Measurement of academic performance was assessedby their performance in the first MBBS university exam.Students with a history of hearing or visual disorder wereexcluded from the study. The Reaction time for both visual andauditory and academic performance was compared betweenthe two groups and correlated the audio-visual reaction timewith the academic performance in both male and females.Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS softwareversion 20.Results: The VRT is (0.71ms) faster than ART (1.63ms). TheRT was not significantly difference in males when compared tofemales and academic performance was significantly more infemales 393.11±40.93 compared to male 368.56±28.87 withp=0.003 and there was a non-significant, weak negativecorrelation of the RT with the academic performance with VRT(r = −0.040, P = 0.75) and ART (r = −0.071, P = 0.57).Conclusion: The RT is shorter in students with high academicperformance and longer in students with low academicperformance.

To Assess Pressure Pain Threshold In Young Healthy Females During Examination Stress

From the time of conception, stress is present in human life (1).Stress either physical or psychological can induces neural, endocrine and behavioural responses and depends onpersonal relevance.generalized nociceptive hypersensitivity and alterations in pain sensitivity in stress is determined by pressure pain threshold(PPT) measured by the algometer.aim and objectof the study is to evaluate the relation of stress and painin healthy young medical girls students by observing the changes in the PPT (pressure pain threshold) of different groups of muscle of upper limb during theexamination stress.. Materials and Methods :Sudy was conducted on 30 healthy young girls medical students of 1st year in the department of physiology ,Ruhscmsjaipur..subject group were examined 15 day before the examination and one day before the examination.PPT of the dominant upperb limb muscles egTricep, Biceps and dorsam of hand. RESULT: pressure pain threshold (PPT) of the biceps and hand muscles have a significantly positive correlation with the acute stress of examination than the triceps muscles which have a non significant correlation P value of biceps and hand muscles and triceps muscle is(003) and(.000)and (112).respectively.,Discussion :Increased pain sensititivity in the examinedmuscles isdue to disinhibiting central nervous system structures involved in regulation of attention eg:-ascending reticular activating system, HPAaxis,brain neuronal activity resulting in sensitization of nociceptive neurons and in enhanced pain sensitivity .conclusion:acute stress of examination modulates pain in humans and contributes to individual variability in pain affect and pain-related brain activity.