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Frontiers in Public Health 2024The growth of certain human brain structures peaks at early ages, and complex motor interventions could positively facilitate this process. This study aims to offer an... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
Motor development-focused exercise training enhances gross motor skills more effectively than ordinary physical activity in healthy preschool children: an updated meta-analysis.
PURPOSE
The growth of certain human brain structures peaks at early ages, and complex motor interventions could positively facilitate this process. This study aims to offer an updated meta-analysis regarding the effectiveness of motor development-focused exercise training on gross motor skills in preschool children.
METHODS
We searched English- and Chinese-language electronic databases as of March 2024. The main eligibility criteria were as follows: participants were healthy children aged 3 to 6 years old, and the experimental design was a randomized controlled trial, with the control arm participating in either free play or ordinary physical education curriculum. We conducted a Hartung-Knapp random-effects meta-analysis of the standardized mean difference for locomotor, object control, or gross motor quotient.
RESULTS
The search identified 23 eligible studies, of which approximately 75% were considered to have a low risk of bias. Compared with active control, exercise training showed a large to very large effect size. Cohen's d values were 1.13, 1.55, and 1.53 for locomotor, object control, and gross motor quotient, respectively. From a probabilistic viewpoint, these effect sizes correspond to events that are "very likely to occur" and "almost sure to occur." Due to variations in intervention programs, all outcome measures showed high heterogeneity.
CONCLUSION
This updated meta-analysis offers a realistic synthesis of the current evidence, leading to the conclusion that targeted motor skill exercise training can almost certainly enhance preschool children's gross motor skills. Practical implications are discussed regarding the refinement of the instructional framework and the dissemination of these findings in preschool settings.
Topics: Humans; Child, Preschool; Motor Skills; Exercise; Child; Child Development; Male; Female; Physical Education and Training; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
PubMed: 38835603
DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1414152 -
Neuro-oncology Jun 2024Neurocognition can be severely affected in pediatric brain tumor survivors. We analyzed the association of cognitive functioning with radiotherapy dose, postoperative...
BACKGROUND
Neurocognition can be severely affected in pediatric brain tumor survivors. We analyzed the association of cognitive functioning with radiotherapy dose, postoperative cerebellar mutism syndrome (pCMS), hydrocephalus, intraventricular methotrexate (MTX) application, tumor localization and biology in pediatric survivors of a posterior fossa tumor.
METHODS
Subdomain-specific neurocognitive outcome data from 279 relapse-free survivors of the HIT-2000 trial (241 medulloblastoma and 38 infratentorial ependymoma) using the Neuropsychological Basic Diagnostic (NBD) tool based on Cattell-Horn-Carroll's model for intelligence were analyzed.
RESULTS
Cognitive performance 5.14 years (mean; range=1.52-13.02) after diagnosis was significantly below normal for all subtests. Processing speed and psychomotor abilities were most affected. Influencing factors were domain-specific: CSI-dose had strong impact on most subtests. pCMS was associated with psychomotor abilities (β=-0.25 to -0.16) and processing speed (β=-0.32). Postoperative hydrocephalus correlated with crystallized intelligence (β=-0.20) and short-term memory (β=-0.15), age with crystallized intelligence (β=0.15) and psychomotor abilities (β=-0.16 and β=-0.17). Scores for fluid intelligence (β=-0.23), short-term memory (β=-0.17) and visual processing (β=-0.25) declined, and scores for selective attention improved (β=0.29) with time after diagnosis.
CONCLUSION
Dose of CSI was strongly associated with neurocognitive outcome. Low psychomotor abilities and processing speed both in patients treated with and without CSI suggest a strong contribution of the tumor and its surgery on these functions. Future research therefore should analyze strategies to both reduce CSI-dose and toxicity caused by other treatment modalities.
PubMed: 38835160
DOI: 10.1093/neuonc/noae092 -
PloS One 2024With the rapid development of intelligent connected vehicles, there is an increasing demand for hardware facilities and onboard systems of driver assistance systems....
With the rapid development of intelligent connected vehicles, there is an increasing demand for hardware facilities and onboard systems of driver assistance systems. Currently, most vehicles are constrained by the hardware resources of onboard systems, which mainly process single-task and single-sensor data. This poses a significant challenge in achieving complex panoramic driving perception technology. While the panoramic driving perception algorithm YOLOP has achieved outstanding performance in multi-task processing, it suffers from poor adaptability of feature map pooling operations and loss of details during downsampling. To address these issues, this paper proposes a panoramic driving perception fusion algorithm based on multi-task learning. The model training involves the introduction of different loss functions and a series of processing steps for lidar point cloud data. Subsequently, the perception information from lidar and vision sensors is fused to achieve synchronized processing of multi-task and multi-sensor data, thereby effectively improving the performance and reliability of the panoramic driving perception system. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm in multi-task processing, the BDD100K dataset is used. The results demonstrate that, compared to the YOLOP model, the multi-task learning network performs better in lane detection, drivable area detection, and vehicle detection tasks. Specifically, the lane detection accuracy improves by 11.6%, the mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) for drivable area detection increases by 2.1%, and the mean Average Precision at 50% IoU (mAP50) for vehicle detection improves by 3.7%.
Topics: Algorithms; Humans; Automobile Driving; Task Performance and Analysis
PubMed: 38833435
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304691 -
Journal of Sports Sciences Apr 2024A key focus of sports science research is the identification of quantitative assessments that can predict players' on-field performance and developmental potential....
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.
Topics: Baseball; Humans; Athletic Performance; Anthropometry; Young Adult; Male; Muscle Strength; Adolescent; Motor Skills
PubMed: 38833336
DOI: 10.1080/02640414.2024.2363679 -
African Journal of Primary Health Care... May 2024Childhood is an important transitional period for the development of healthy physical activity (PA) behaviours, so it is important to understand its impact on a...
BACKGROUND
Childhood is an important transitional period for the development of healthy physical activity (PA) behaviours, so it is important to understand its impact on a healthy lifestyle.
AIM
This study aimed to determine the influences of sex, socioeconomic status (SES) and body composition (BC) on the relationships between PA, motor skills, motor- and health-related physical fitness in 5-8-year-olds.
SETTING
Participants were a subsample consisting of 299 children (150 boys, 149 girls, mean age 6.83 ± 0.96 years) from the Exercise, Arterial Modulation and Nutrition in Youth South Africa study (ExAMIN Youth SA).
METHODS
Anthropometric measures, health-related physical fitness (HRPF), motor-related physical fitness (MRPF), objectively measured PA and demographic information were determined.
RESULTS
Only 66% achieved the recommended 60 min of daily moderate vigorous physical activity (MVPA) with 19% classified as having unhealthy body composition (11% overweight, 8% obese). Fat-free mass and SES revealed small-to-moderate influences on the relationship between MVPA, standing broad jump (SBJ; r = 0.32), predicted VO2max (r = 0.28) and beep levels (r = 0.22). For MRPF, the quality of running (r = 0.12) and balancing were associated with MVPA. Adjusting for sex, BC and SES in the relationship between PA with HRPF and MRPF, reductions in most correlations were observed.
CONCLUSION
Moderate vigorous physical activity levels were positively associated with HRPF, MRPF and some motor skills in 5-8-year-olds. Socioeconomic status (lower parental income, employment and education negatively influenced the association between MVPA and fitness [beeps, SBJ, O2max]).Contribution: This study provides knowledge with regard to the use of accelerometer for baseline data for PA, MRPF, HRPF as well as motor skills in South African children.
Topics: Humans; Female; Male; Physical Fitness; Motor Skills; Child; South Africa; Exercise; Child, Preschool; Body Composition; Social Class; Sex Factors
PubMed: 38832375
DOI: 10.4102/phcfm.v16i1.4258 -
Accident; Analysis and Prevention Sep 2024Paramedics face various unconventional and secondary task demands while driving ambulances, leading to significant cognitive load, especially during lights-and-sirens...
Paramedics face various unconventional and secondary task demands while driving ambulances, leading to significant cognitive load, especially during lights-and-sirens responses. Previous research suggests that high cognitive load negatively affects driving performance, increasing the risk of accidents, particularly for inexperienced drivers. The current study investigated the impact of anticipatory treatment planning on cognitive load during emergency driving, as assessed through the use of a driving simulator. We recruited 28 non-paramedic participants to complete a simulated baseline drive with no task and a cognitive load manipulation using the 1-back task. We also recruited 18 paramedicine students who completed a drive while considering two cases they were travelling to: cardiac arrest and infant seizure, representing varying difficulty in required treatment. The results indicated that both cases imposed considerable cognitive load, as indicated by NASA Task Load Index responses, comparable to the 1-back task and significantly higher than driving with no load. These findings suggest that contemplating cases and treatment plans may impact the safety of novice paramedics driving ambulances for emergency response. Further research should explore the influence of experience and the presence of a second individual in the vehicle to generalise to broader emergency response driving contexts.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Automobile Driving; Adult; Cognition; Young Adult; Seizures; Computer Simulation; Allied Health Personnel; Ambulances; Infant; Emergency Treatment; Task Performance and Analysis; Paramedicine
PubMed: 38830295
DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2024.107646 -
Journal of Visualized Experiments : JoVE May 2024Developing objective and quantitative methods of early gross motor assessment is essential to better understand neurodevelopment and to support early therapeutic...
Developing objective and quantitative methods of early gross motor assessment is essential to better understand neurodevelopment and to support early therapeutic interventions. Here, we present a method to quantify gross motor performance using a multisensor wearable, MAIJU (Motility Assessment of Infants with a JUmpsuit), which offers an automated, scalable, quantitative, and objective assessment using a fully automated cloud-based pipeline. This wearable suit is equipped with four movement sensors that record synchronized data to a mobile phone utilizing a low-energy Bluetooth connection. An offline analysis in the cloud server generates fully analyzed results within minutes for each recording. These results include a graphical report of the recording session and a detailed result matrix that gives second-by-second classifications for posture, movement, infant carrying, and free playtime. Our recent results show the virtue of such quantified motor assessment providing a potentially effective method for distinguishing variations in the infant's gross motor development.
Topics: Humans; Wearable Electronic Devices; Infant; Motor Skills; Child Development
PubMed: 38829118
DOI: 10.3791/65949 -
Human Brain Mapping Jun 2024Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS) is a disorder characterised by motor and vocal tics, which may represent habitual actions as a result of enhanced learning of...
Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS) is a disorder characterised by motor and vocal tics, which may represent habitual actions as a result of enhanced learning of associations between stimuli and responses (S-R). In this study, we investigated how adults with GTS and healthy controls (HC) learn two types of regularities in a sequence: statistics (non-adjacent probabilities) and rules (predefined order). Participants completed a visuomotor sequence learning task while EEG was recorded. To understand the neurophysiological underpinnings of these regularities in GTS, multivariate pattern analyses on the temporally decomposed EEG signal as well as sLORETA source localisation method were conducted. We found that people with GTS showed superior statistical learning but comparable rule-based learning compared to HC participants. Adults with GTS had different neural representations for both statistics and rules than HC adults; specifically, adults with GTS maintained the regularity representations longer and had more overlap between them than HCs. Moreover, over different time scales, distinct fronto-parietal structures contribute to statistical learning in the GTS and HC groups. We propose that hyper-learning in GTS is a consequence of the altered sensitivity to encode complex statistics, which might lead to habitual actions.
Topics: Humans; Tourette Syndrome; Male; Adult; Female; Electroencephalography; Young Adult; Learning; Psychomotor Performance; Middle Aged; Probability Learning
PubMed: 38826009
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26719 -
Scientific Reports Jun 2024We describe an approach aimed at helping artificial intelligence develop theory of mind of their human teammates to support team interactions. We show how this can be...
We describe an approach aimed at helping artificial intelligence develop theory of mind of their human teammates to support team interactions. We show how this can be supported through the provision of quantifiable, machine-readable, a priori information about the human team members to an agent. We first show how our profiling approach can capture individual team member characteristic profiles that can be constructed from sparse data and provided to agents to support the development of artificial theory of mind. We then show how it captures features of team composition that may influence team performance. We document this through an experiment examining factors influencing the performance of ad-hoc teams executing a complex team coordination task when paired with an artificial social intelligence (ASI) teammate. We report the relationship between the individual and team characteristics and measures related to task performance and self-reported perceptions of the ASI. The results show that individual and emergent team profiles were able to characterize features of the team that predicted behavior and explain differences in perceptions of ASI. Further, the features of these profiles may interact differently when teams work with human versus ASI advisors. Most strikingly, our analyses showed that ASI advisors had a strong positive impact on low potential teams such that they improved the performance of those teams across mission outcome measures. We discuss these findings in the context of developing intelligent technologies capable of social cognition and engage in collaborative behaviors that improve team effectiveness.
Topics: Humans; Artificial Intelligence; Theory of Mind; Male; Female; Cooperative Behavior; Adult; Task Performance and Analysis
PubMed: 38825652
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-63122-8 -
NeuroImage Jul 2024Executive functions are essential for adaptive behavior. One executive function is the so-called 'interference control' or conflict monitoring another one is inhibitory...
Executive functions are essential for adaptive behavior. One executive function is the so-called 'interference control' or conflict monitoring another one is inhibitory control (i.e., action restraint and action cancelation). Recent evidence suggests an interplay of these processes, which is conceptually relevant given that newer conceptual frameworks imply that nominally different action/response control processes are explainable by a small set of cognitive and neurophysiological processes. The existence of such overarching neural principles has as yet not directly been examined. In the current study, we therefore use EEG tensor decomposition methods, to look into possible common neurophysiological signatures underlying conflict-modulated action restraint and action cancelation as mechanism underlying response inhibition. We show how conflicts differentially modulate action restraint and action cancelation processes and delineate common and distinct neural processes underlying this interplay. Concerning the spatial information modulations are similar in terms of an importance of processes reflected by parieto-occipital electrodes, suggesting that attentional selection processes play a role. Especially theta and alpha activity seem to play important roles. The data also show that tensor decomposition is sensitive to the manner of task implementation, thereby suggesting that switch probability/transitional probabilities should be taken into consideration when choosing tensor decomposition as analysis method. The study provides a blueprint of how to use tensor decomposition methods to delineate common and distinct neural mechanisms underlying action control functions using EEG data.
Topics: Humans; Electroencephalography; Conflict, Psychological; Male; Executive Function; Female; Adult; Young Adult; Brain; Inhibition, Psychological; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 38825216
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120667