Strength, speed, and anthropometric predictors of in-game batting performance in baseball.

A key focus of sports science research is the identification of quantitative assessments that can predict players' on-field performance and developmental potential. Despite efforts to establish predictive models, there are few validated measures that show reliable associations and large gaps in understanding. Here, we test a multidimensional battery of assessments developed through the USA Baseball, Prospect Development Pipeline that capture strength and functional movement abilities, and anthropometric characteristics, in a two-year cohort of collegiate baseball players from the Appalachian League. Swing propensity metrics for Zone Contact Percentage (ZCP: proportion pitches in strike zone swung at and hit) and Hard-Hit Percentage (HHP: proportion in-play balls with exit velocity ≥ 95 mph) were calculated on 189 players. Models testing hierarchical combinations of anthropometric and anthropometric plus assessment data were implemented using nested cross-validation with random forest and elastic net regression. Results indicate that anthropometric features account for 29% of variance in ZCP and 50-55% of HHP, while the addition of assessment contributed an additional 1-3% to ZCP and 5-12% to HHP, with top predictors coming from PDP strength and power assessments. These findings delineate contributions of andromorphic and physical abilities to in-game baseball performance using a validated assessment battery and advanced game statistics.

Predictors of batting and pitching performance in the USA baseball prospect development pipeline.

This study examined the relationship between psychomotor abilities and baseball performance by analysing data from 379 athletes who participated in the USA Baseball, Prospect Development Pipeline (PDP). Hit and pitch metrics were generated during practice sessions using the RapsodoTM System. Data were compared through exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical regression. Factor analysis grouped batter's PDP evaluations into four latent variables accounting for 63% of variance. Pitcher performance grouped into three factors accounting for 51% of variance. Regression on batter data revealed a significant demographic/anthropometric base model with height, weight, and age that accounted for 58% of the batted ball speed (R2 = 0.581). Player position explained 2% of the variance (R2 = 0.604), and PDP evaluation scores contributed an additional 3% (R2 = 0.631). Regression of pitcher data showed a significant base demographic/anthropometric model accounting for 36% of fastball pitch speeds (R2 = 0.363), with the PDP evaluation scores adding 6% additional variance (R2 = 0.424). Uniformly, assessments of lower body strength added the greatest predictive information. Hand grip strength did not correlate with pitch metrics. While demographics/anthropometrics are major contributors to batted and pitched ball speed, position and psychomotor variables add statistically significant contributions and may be of practical value for player selection.

Developing Expert Gaze Pattern in Laparoscopic Surgery Requires More than Behavioral Training.

Expertise in laparoscopic surgery is realized through both manual dexterity and efficient eye movement patterns, creating opportunities to use gaze information in the educational process. To better understand how expert gaze behaviors are acquired through deliberate practice of technical skills, three surgeons were assessed and five novices were trained and assessed in a 5-visit protocol on the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery peg transfer task. The task was adjusted to have a fixed action sequence to allow recordings of dwell durations based on pre-defined areas of interest (AOIs). Trained novices were shown to reach more than 98% (M = 98.62%, SD = 1.06%) of their behavioral learning plateaus, leading to equivalent behavioral performance to that of surgeons. Despite this equivalence in behavioral performance, surgeons continued to show significantly shorter dwell durations at visual targets of current actions and longer dwell durations at future steps in the action sequence than trained novices (ps ≤ .03, Cohen's ds > 2). This study demonstrates that, while novices can train to match surgeons on behavioral performance, their gaze pattern is still less efficient than that of surgeons, motivating surgical training programs to involve eye tracking technology in their design and evaluation.

The Added Value of Technetium-99 m Sestamibi Scan in Patients with Primary Hyperparathyroidism and Positive Ultrasound.

BACKGROUND: Neck ultrasound (US) and Technetium-99 m Sestamibi (MIBI) scan are the most commonly used imaging studies for preoperative localization of parathyroid adenomas. The aim of this study was to determine the added value of MIBI scan and its effect on the operative plan via a hypothetical model where a stepwise approach is conducted and MIBI is considered only after the ultrasound is evaluated. METHODS: Patients who underwent parathyroidectomy for primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) between 2012 and 2019 at two tertiary centers were included. Data collected included demographic data, preoperative workup, operative findings and follow-up. The added value of MIBI scans was determined for patients with positive ultrasound. RESULTS: A total of 513 patients with positive US result and a MIBI scan were included. If a stepwise approach was conducted then MIBI scan would not change the operative plan in 492 (95.9%). Among the remaining 21 patients, MIBI scan would correctly change the ultrasound-based operative plan in only 12 (2.3%) patients, while incorrectly change the plan in 9 (1.8%), resulting in unnecessary exploration of the contralateral side. In patients with sonographic appearance of a parathyroid gland larger than 1.2 cm, MIBI scan would correctly change the operative plan in only 1 of the 287 (0.35%) patients. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that the routine use of MIBI scans may have limited added value in patients with PHPT and a positive neck ultrasound, especially in those with adenoma size larger than 1.2 cm. Positive ultrasound alone may be sufficient for the preoperative localization of parathyroid disease.

Older adults benefit from more widespread brain network integration during working memory.

Neuroimaging evidence suggests that the aging brain relies on a more distributed set of cortical regions than younger adults in order to maintain successful levels of performance during demanding cognitive tasks. However, it remains unclear how task demands give rise to this age-related expansion in cortical networks. To investigate this issue, functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure univariate activity, network connectivity, and cognitive performance in younger and older adults during a working memory (WM) task. Here, individuals performed a WM task in which they held letters online while reordering them alphabetically. WM load was titrated to obtain four individualized difficulty levels with different set sizes. Network integration-defined as the ratio of within-versus between-network connectivity-was linked to individual differences in WM capacity. The study yielded three main findings. First, as task difficulty increased, network integration decreased in younger adults, whereas it increased in older adults. Second, age-related increases in network integration were driven by increases in right hemisphere connectivity to both left and right cortical regions, a finding that helps to reconcile existing theories of compensatory recruitment in aging. Lastly, older adults with higher WM capacity demonstrated higher levels of network integration in the most difficult task condition. These results shed light on the mechanisms of age-related network reorganization by demonstrating that changes in network connectivity may act as an adaptive form of compensation, with older adults recruiting a more distributed cortical network as task demands increase.

Sleep increases chromosome dynamics to enable reduction of accumulating DNA damage in single neurons.

Sleep is essential to all animals with a nervous system. Nevertheless, the core cellular function of sleep is unknown, and there is no conserved molecular marker to define sleep across phylogeny. Time-lapse imaging of chromosomal markers in single cells of live zebrafish revealed that sleep increases chromosome dynamics in individual neurons but not in two other cell types. Manipulation of sleep, chromosome dynamics, neuronal activity, and DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) showed that chromosome dynamics are low and the number of DSBs accumulates during wakefulness. In turn, sleep increases chromosome dynamics, which are necessary to reduce the amount of DSBs. These results establish chromosome dynamics as a potential marker to define single sleeping cells, and propose that the restorative function of sleep is nuclear maintenance.

Online repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation during working memory in younger and older adults: A randomized within-subject comparison.

Working memory is the ability to perform mental operations on information that is stored in a flexible, limited capacity buffer. The ability to manipulate information in working memory is central to many aspects of human cognition, but also declines with healthy aging. Given the profound importance of such working memory manipulation abilities, there is a concerted effort towards developing approaches to improve them. The current study tested the capacity to enhance working memory manipulation with online repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in healthy young and older adults. Online high frequency (5Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to test the hypothesis that active repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation would lead to significant improvements in memory recall accuracy compared to sham stimulation, and that these effects would be most pronounced in working memory manipulation conditions with the highest cognitive demand in both young and older adults. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied while participants were performing a delayed response alphabetization task with three individually-titrated levels of difficulty. The left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was identified by combining electric field modeling to individualized functional magnetic resonance imaging activation maps and was targeted during the experiment using stereotactic neuronavigation with real-time robotic guidance, allowing optimal coil placement during the stimulation. As no accuracy differences were found between young and older adults, the results from both groups were collapsed. Subsequent analyses revealed that active stimulation significantly increased accuracy relative to sham stimulation, but only for the hardest condition. These results point towards further investigation of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for memory enhancement focusing on high difficulty conditions as those most likely to exhibit benefits.

A Randomized Controlled Trial Investigating the Feasibility and Adherence to an Aerobic Training Program in Healthy Individuals.

CONTEXT: Concussion management is moving from passive rest strategies to active interventions, including aerobic exercise therapy. Little information is available regarding the feasibility and adherence of these programs. OBJECTIVES: To determine whether an aerobic exercise training program intended for rehabilitation in people with concussion is feasible. Healthy, nonconcussed subjects were studied in this phase 1 trial. DESIGN: Phase 1 parallel-group, randomized controlled trial in a sample of healthy (nonconcussed), recreationally active university students. SETTING: Laboratory. PATIENTS: 40 healthy university students. METHODS: Participants were equally randomized to acute concussion therapy intervention (ACTIVE) training or nontraining groups. All participants completed maximal cardiopulmonary exercise tests on a stationary cycle ergometer at 2 test sessions approximately 14 days apart. During this 2-week study period, ACTIVE training participants completed six 30-minute cycling sessions, progressing from 60% to 80% of the participant's individualized maximal oxygen consumption. A subset of participants (NACTIVE = 12, Nnontraining = 11) wore physical activity monitors throughout the 2-week study period. MAIN OUTCOMES MEASURES: Study protocol and randomization effectiveness, exercise safety and adherence, and progressive intensity of the ACTIVE training procedures. RESULTS: No adverse events occurred during any exercise sessions. Twelve ACTIVE training participants (60%) completed all training sessions, and every participant completed at least 4 sessions. Heart rate increased throughout the training period (P < .001), but symptom changes and training adherence remained stable despite the progressively increasing workload. ACTIVE training participants completed approximately 30 additional minutes of physical activity on training sessions days, although that was not statistically significant (P = .20). CONCLUSIONS: University-aged students were adherent to the ACTIVE training protocol. Future research should investigate the safety and feasibility of aerobic training programs in acutely concussed individuals to determine their appropriateness as a clinical rehabilitation strategy.

Complementary topology of maintenance and manipulation brain networks in working memory.

Working memory (WM) is assumed to consist of a process that sustains memory representations in an active state (maintenance) and a process that operates on these activated representations (manipulation). We examined evidence for two distinct, concurrent cognitive functions supporting maintenance and manipulation abilities by testing brain activity as participants performed a WM alphabetization task. Maintenance was investigated by varying the number of letters held in WM and manipulation by varying the number of moves required to sort the list alphabetically. We found that both maintenance and manipulation demand had significant effects on behavior that were associated with different cortical regions: maintenance was associated with bilateral prefrontal and left parietal cortex, and manipulation with right parietal activity, a link that is consistent with the role of parietal cortex in symbolic computations. Both structural and functional architecture of these systems suggested that these cognitive functions are supported by two dissociable brain networks. Critically, maintenance and manipulation functional networks became increasingly segregated with increasing demand, an effect that was positively associated with individual WM ability. These results provide evidence that network segregation may act as a protective mechanism to enable successful performance under increasing WM demand.

Distress tolerance to auditory feedback and functional connectivity with the auditory cortex.

Distress tolerance is the capacity to withstand negative affective states in pursuit of a goal. Low distress tolerance may bias an individual to avoid or escape experiences that induce affective distress, but the neural mechanisms underlying the bottom-up generation of distress and its relationship to behavioral avoidance are poorly understood. During a neuroimaging scan, healthy participants completed a mental arithmetic task with easy and distress phases, which differed in cognitive demands and positive versus negative auditory feedback. Then, participants were given the opportunity to continue playing the distress phase for a financial bonus and were allowed to quit at any time. The persistence duration was the measure of distress tolerance. The easy and distress phases activated auditory cortices and fronto-parietal regions. A task-based functional connectivity analysis using the left secondary auditory cortex (i.e., planum temporale) as the seed region revealed stronger connectivity to fronto-parietal regions and anterior insula during the distress phase. The distress-related connectivity between the seed region and the left anterior insula was negatively correlated with distress tolerance. The results provide initial evidence of the role of the anterior insula as a mediating link between the bottom-up generation of affective distress and top-down behavioral avoidance of distress.

Sensorimotor abilities predict on-field performance in professional baseball.

Baseball players must be able to see and react in an instant, yet it is hotly debated whether superior performance is associated with superior sensorimotor abilities. In this study, we compare sensorimotor abilities, measured through 8 psychomotor tasks comprising the Nike Sensory Station assessment battery, and game statistics in a sample of 252 professional baseball players to evaluate the links between sensorimotor skills and on-field performance. For this purpose, we develop a series of Bayesian hierarchical latent variable models enabling us to compare statistics across professional baseball leagues. Within this framework, we find that sensorimotor abilities are significant predictors of on-base percentage, walk rate and strikeout rate, accounting for age, position, and league. We find no such relationship for either slugging percentage or fielder-independent pitching. The pattern of results suggests performance contributions from both visual-sensory and visual-motor abilities and indicates that sensorimotor screenings may be useful for player scouting.

A Common Mechanism for Perceptual Reversals in Motion-Induced Blindness, the Troxler Effect, and Perceptual Filling-In.

Several striking visual phenomena involve a physically present stimulus that alternates between being perceived and being "invisible." For example, motion-induced blindness, the Troxler effect, and perceptual filling-in all consist of subjective alternations where an item repeatedly changes from being seen to unseen. In the present study, we explored whether these three specific visual phenomena share any commonalities in their alternation rates and patterns to better understand the mechanisms of each. Data from 69 individuals revealed moderate to strong correlations across the three phenomena for the number of perceptual disappearances and the accumulated duration of the disappearances. Importantly, these effects were not correlated with eye movement patterns (saccades) assessed through eye tracking, differences in motion sensitivity as indexed by dot coherence and speed perception thresholds, or simple reaction time abilities. Principal component analyses revealed a single component that explained 67% of the variance for the number of perceptual reversals and 60% for the accumulated duration of the disappearances. The temporal dynamics of illusory disappearances was also compared for each phenomenon, and normalized durations of disappearances were well fit by a gamma distribution with similar shape parameters for each phenomenon, suggesting that they may be driven by a single oscillatory mechanism.

Sensorimotor Learning in a Computerized Athletic Training Battery.

Sensorimotor abilities are crucial for performance in athletic, military, and other occupational activities, and there is great interest in understanding learning in these skills. Here, behavioral performance was measured over three days as twenty-seven participants practiced multiple sessions on the Nike SPARQ Sensory Station (Nike, Inc., Beaverton, Oregon), a computerized visual and motor assessment battery. Wrist-worn actigraphy was recorded to monitor sleep-wake cycles. Significant learning was observed in tasks with high visuomotor control demands but not in tasks of visual sensitivity. Learning was primarily linear, with up to 60% improvement, but did not relate to sleep quality in this normal-sleeping population. These results demonstrate differences in the rate and capacity for learning across perceptual and motor domains, indicating potential targets for sensorimotor training interventions.

EFSUMB Guidelines on Interventional Ultrasound (INVUS), Part III - Abdominal Treatment Procedures (Short Version).

The third part of the European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (EFSUMB) Guidelines on Interventional Ultrasound assesses the evidence for ultrasound-guided and assisted interventions in abdominal treatment procedures. Recommendations for clinical practice are presented covering indications, contraindications, safety and efficacy of the broad variety of these techniques. In particular, drainage of abscesses and fluid collections, interventional tumor ablation techniques, interventional treatment of symptomatic cysts and echinococcosis, percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography and drainage, percutaneous gastrostomy, urinary bladder drainage, and nephrostomy are addressed (short version; a long version is published online).

EFSUMB Guidelines on Interventional Ultrasound (INVUS), Part III - Abdominal Treatment Procedures (Long Version).

The third part of the European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (EFSUMB) Guidelines on Interventional Ultrasound (INVUS) assesses the evidence for ultrasound-guided and assisted interventions in abdominal treatment procedures. Recommendations for clinical practice are presented covering indications, contraindications, and safe and effective performance of the broad variety of these techniques. In particular, drainage of abscesses and fluid collections, interventional tumor ablation techniques, interventional treatment of symptomatic cysts and echinococcosis, percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography and drainage, percutaneous gastrostomy, urinary bladder drainage, and nephrostomy are addressed (long version).

Local ablative procedures of the liver.

Local ablative therapies have become an important part in the portfolio of treatment for patients with malignant tumors especially in the liver. Although percutaneous ethanol injection still plays a role, current guidelines favor radiofrequency ablation with a higher efficacy for complete tumor destruction. Nevertheless transplantation and surgical resection remain the gold standard due to their superiority in local control and improved survival. In this manuscript we discuss the technique in detail.

The steady-state visual evoked potential in vision research: A review.

Periodic visual stimulation and analysis of the resulting steady-state visual evoked potentials were first introduced over 80 years ago as a means to study visual sensation and perception. From the first single-channel recording of responses to modulated light to the present use of sophisticated digital displays composed of complex visual stimuli and high-density recording arrays, steady-state methods have been applied in a broad range of scientific and applied settings.The purpose of this article is to describe the fundamental stimulation paradigms for steady-state visual evoked potentials and to illustrate these principles through research findings across a range of applications in vision science.

Improvement in visual search with practice: mapping learning-related changes in neurocognitive stages of processing.

Practice can improve performance on visual search tasks; the neural mechanisms underlying such improvements, however, are not clear. Response time typically shortens with practice, but which components of the stimulus-response processing chain facilitate this behavioral change? Improved search performance could result from enhancements in various cognitive processing stages, including (1) sensory processing, (2) attentional allocation, (3) target discrimination, (4) motor-response preparation, and/or (5) response execution. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) as human participants completed a five-day visual-search protocol in which they reported the orientation of a color popout target within an array of ellipses. We assessed changes in behavioral performance and in ERP components associated with various stages of processing. After practice, response time decreased in all participants (while accuracy remained consistent), and electrophysiological measures revealed modulation of several ERP components. First, amplitudes of the early sensory-evoked N1 component at 150 ms increased bilaterally, indicating enhanced visual sensory processing of the array. Second, the negative-polarity posterior-contralateral component (N2pc, 170-250 ms) was earlier and larger, demonstrating enhanced attentional orienting. Third, the amplitude of the sustained posterior contralateral negativity component (SPCN, 300-400 ms) decreased, indicating facilitated target discrimination. Finally, faster motor-response preparation and execution were observed after practice, as indicated by latency changes in both the stimulus-locked and response-locked lateralized readiness potentials (LRPs). These electrophysiological results delineate the functional plasticity in key mechanisms underlying visual search with high temporal resolution and illustrate how practice influences various cognitive and neural processing stages leading to enhanced behavioral performance.

Mapping the structure of perceptual and visual-motor abilities in healthy young adults.

The ability to quickly detect and respond to visual stimuli in the environment is critical to many human activities. While such perceptual and visual-motor skills are important in a myriad of contexts, considerable variability exists between individuals in these abilities. To better understand the sources of this variability, we assessed perceptual and visual-motor skills in a large sample of 230 healthy individuals via the Nike SPARQ Sensory Station, and compared variability in their behavioral performance to demographic, state, sleep and consumption characteristics. Dimension reduction and regression analyses indicated three underlying factors: Visual-Motor Control, Visual Sensitivity, and Eye Quickness, which accounted for roughly half of the overall population variance in performance on this battery. Inter-individual variability in Visual-Motor Control was correlated with gender and circadian patters such that performance on this factor was better for males and for those who had been awake for a longer period of time before assessment. The current findings indicate that abilities involving coordinated hand movements in response to stimuli are subject to greater individual variability, while visual sensitivity and occulomotor control are largely stable across individuals.