Measuring acceleration and deceleration in soccer-specific movements using a local position measurement (LPM) system.

PURPOSE: A local position measurement (LPM) system can accurately track the distance covered and the average speed of whole-body movements. However, for the quantification of a soccer player's workload, accelerations rather than positions or speeds are essential. The main purpose of the current study was therefore to determine the accuracy of LPM in measuring average and peak accelerations for a broad range of (maximal) soccer-specific movements. METHODS: Twelve male amateur soccer players performed 8 movements (categorized in straight runs and runs involving a sudden change in direction of 90° or 180°) at 3 intensities (jog, submaximal, maximal). Position-related parameters recorded with LPM were compared with Vicon motion-analysis data sampled at 100 Hz. The differences between LPM and Vicon data were expressed as percentage of the Vicon data. RESULTS: LPM provided reasonably accurate measurements for distance, average speed, and peak speed (differences within 2% across all movements and intensities). For average acceleration and deceleration, absolute bias and 95% limits of agreement were 0.01 ± 0.36 m/s2 and 0.02 ± 0.38 m/s2, respectively. On average, peak acceleration was overestimated (0.48 ± 1.27 m/s2) by LPM, while peak deceleration was underestimated (0.32 ± 1.17 m/s2). CONCLUSION: LPM accuracy appears acceptable for most measurements of average acceleration and deceleration, but for peak acceleration and deceleration accuracy is limited. However, when these error margins are kept in mind, the system may be used in practice for quantifying average accelerations and parameters such as summed accelerations or time spent in acceleration zones.

Retrograde amnesia and the volume of critical brain structures.

There are many controversies concerning the structural basis of retrograde amnesia (RA). One view is that memories are held briefly within a medial temporal store ("hippocampal complex") before being "consolidated" or reorganised within temporal neocortex and/or networks more widely distributed within the cerebral cortex. An alternative view is that the medial temporal lobes are always involved in the storage and retrieval (reactivation) of autobiographical memories (multiple trace theory). The present study used quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 40 patients with focal pathology/volume loss in different sites, to examine the correlates of impairment on three different measures of RA. The findings supported the view that widespread neural networks are involved in the storage and retrieval of autobiographical and other remote memories. Brain volume measures in critical structures could account for 60% of variance on autobiographical memory measures (for incidents and facts) in diencephalic patients and for 60-68% of variance in patients with frontal lesions. Significant correlations with medial temporal lobe volume were found only in the diencephalic group, in whom they were thought to reflect thalamic changes, but not in patients with herpes encephalitis or hypoxia in whom the temporal lobes were particularly implicated. The latter finding fails to support one of the main predictions of multiple trace theory, as presently expounded.

Structural MRI volumetric analysis in patients with organic amnesia, 1: methods and comparative findings across diagnostic groups.

BACKGROUND: If they are to be replicable, MRI volume measurements require explicit definitions of structures and of criteria for delineating these structures on MRI. Previously published volumes in healthy subjects show considerable differences in measurements across different studies, including a fourfold variation in estimates of hippocampal volume. Previous neuroimaging reports in patients with Korsakoff syndrome have generally found widespread or non-specific change, whereas in patients with herpes encephalitis the extent of pathological involvement reported beyond the temporal lobes has varied. METHOD: In the present study, a clear set of anatomical criteria and detailed MRI segmentation procedures were applied to measure whole brain, frontal and temporal lobe, and anterolateral and medial temporal volumes, as well as thalamic areas in patients with organic amnesia (from Korsakoff's syndrome, herpes encephalitis, and focal frontal lesions) as well as healthy controls. RESULTS: Patients with Korsakoff's syndrome showed decreased thalamic measurements but no significant changes in the medial temporal lobes, whereas patients with herpes encephalitis showed severe medial temporal but not thalamic atrophy. In the patients with known frontal lobe lesions, quantitative analysis on MRI showed reduced frontal lobe volume but no significant temporal lobe or thalamic atrophy. CONCLUSION: Quantified MRI can be a useful technique with which to examine brain-cognitive relations, provided that detailed techniques are explicitly described. In particular, specific patterns of volume change can be found in vivo in patients with Korsakoff's syndrome and those with herpes encephalitis.

PET activation of the medial temporal lobe in learning.

Regional cerebral blood flow was examined during multiple-trial learning in healthy volunteers. On the basis that incremental learning from trial to trial is severely impaired in neuropsychological studies of patients with medial temporal lesions, we predicted that medial temporal activation might be particularly associated with incremental gains in learning. On the other hand, we predicted that frontal activations would not show any increase during incremental learning, and might even diminish. PET recordings were undertaken while subjects were presented visually with a 15-word list in one of three conditions: a list in which a single word was repeated 15 times (S), a list of novel words (N), and a list which was repeated from before (R). We demonstrated that statistically significant incremental learning did occur when word lists were repeated in (R) trials. The subtraction of novel minus repeated conditions (N-R) was associated with left medial temporal as well as left prefrontal activations, whereas the opposite (R-N) subtraction gave rise to right prefrontal and precuneal activations. In particular, incremental learning during the repeated trials (R) identified a left medial temporal activation, as predicted, but the left frontal activation was no longer evident. We suggest that the left medial temporal region is not only activated by novel, to-be-learned stimuli, but it also contributes to incremental learning as part of a network involved in 'binding' or 'consolidating' new memories. The right frontal and precuneal regions, which participate in the repeated retrieval and rehearsal of already learned memories, are also involved in this network. The left frontal region is implicated in the more 'effortful' or elaborative aspects of memory.