Posts tagged performance
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Women with Alzheimer’s show worse mental deterioration than men with the disease, even when at the same stage of the condition, according to researchers from the University of Hertfordshire.
In the paper published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, the researchers discovered that men with Alzheimer’s consistently and significantly performed better than women with the disease across the five cognitive areas they examined. Most remarkably, the verbal skills of women with Alzheimer’s are worse when compared to men with the disease, which is a striking difference to the profile for the healthy population where females have a distinct advantage.
A Mathematical View of Track and Field World Records
A mathematician has developed a new model that can estimate which track and field world records are the most likely to be broken.
Brian Godsey, a graduate student in mathematics at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria, recently published a paper including computations of the likelihood of record-setting performances in 48 different men’s and women’s track and field events during this calendar year.
Godsey’s paper did not directly address the likelihood of an athlete setting a track and field world record at the 2012 London Olympics, but his analysis suggests that viewers should keep a close watch on the men’s 110-meter hurdles and three women’s events, the 5,000-meter and 3000-meter steeplechase races, as wells as the hammer throw. There is a 95 percent chance that the women’s steeplechase record will be broken this year, Godsey wrote in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports.
Intelligence: Brain size matters, but so do connections
Measuring human intelligence may be controversial and oh-so-very-tricky to do. The latest study underscores a growing appreciation among neuroscientists for the importance of the brain’s “white matter” — fat-covered clusters of axons that string neurons and the brain’s two hemispheres together— in brain function.
Neuroscientist keeps astronauts awake with ISS lighting tweaks
A neuroscientist is working with Nasa to develop special lamps that could help restore the circadian rhythm of exhausted astronauts working aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Thomas Jefferson University neuroscientist George C Brainard, who has headed up the university’s Light Research Program since 1984, received approval for the lights in early 2012 and 100 of the LED models are due to be sent to Nasa by mid-2015. The lights have three different colour temperatures to help ease the astronauts into morning, nighttime and normal working mode.
"An astronaut here on Earth experiences a 24-hour day/night cycle just like you and I," explained Brainard. "Now when they’re on the space station, they’re circling the planet every 90 minutes. So they’ve gone from a 24-hour day to a 90-minute day."
Obese Kids as Bright as Thinner Peers
ScienceDaily (July 12, 2012) — Obesity is not to blame for poor educational performance, according to early findings from research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). In a study that combines statistical methods with genetic information, researchers dispel the false idea that being overweight has damaging educational consequences.
Previous studies have shown that children who are heavier are less likely to do well at school. However, Dr Stephanie von Hinke Kessler Scholder from University of York argues it’s vital to understand what drives this association. “We sought to test whether obesity ‘directly’ hinders performance due to bullying or health problems, or whether kids who are obese do less well because of other factors that are associated with both obesity and lower exam results, such as coming from a disadvantaged family,” Dr Scholder explains.
Researchers examined data on almost 4,000 members of the Children of the 90s Birth Cohort Study. These data include the children’s DNA. It is well known that genes are randomly allocated within a population, irrespective of factors such as socio-economic position. The researchers combined the latest developments from genetic epidemiology with statistical methodologies in economic and econometric research. Using two carefully chosen ‘genetic markers’, the research team was able to identify children with a slightly higher genetic pre-disposition to obesity.
“Based on a simple correlation between children’s obesity as measured by their fat mass and their exam results, we found that heavier children did do slightly worse in school,” Dr Scholder points out. “But, when we used children’s genetic markers to account for potentially other factors, we found no evidence that obesity causally affects exam results. So, we conclude that obesity is not a major factor affecting children’s educational outcomes.”
These findings suggest that the previously found negative relationship between weight and educational performance is driven by factors that affect both weight and educational attainment. Future research should focus on other determinants of poor educational outcomes, such as social class or a family’s socio-economic circumstances, Dr Scholder points out.
The finding that obesity is not a cause of poorer educational performance is, the researchers suggest, a positive thing. “Clearly there are reasons why there are differences in educational outcomes, but our research shows that obesity is not one of them,” Dr Scholder argues.
Source: Science Daily
The Doping-Drug Epo Has an Impact in the Brain
ScienceDaily (June 11, 2012) — Sportsmen and women have been known to dope with the blood hormone Epo to enhance their performance. Researchers from the University of Zurich have now discovered, through animal testing, that Epo has a performance-enhancing effect in the brain shortly after an injection by improving oxygen transport in blood. As Epo also increases motivation, it could be useful in treating depression, experts say.
The well-known blood hormone Epo is not only used for medicinal purposes; some athletes misuse it for doping. It boosts the number of red blood cells, thereby increasing the transport of oxygen to the muscles. This leads to improvements in performance, which can especially give endurance athletes such as cyclists or marathon runners the edge.
Epo has immediate impact on exercise performance
In a recently published study, Max Gassmann, a veterinary physiologist from the University of Zurich, proved that Epo also drastically increases motivation in the brain as soon as it has been injected, without the number of red blood cells increasing.
Gassmann’s team tested exercise performance of differently treated mice, studying genetically modified mice that produce human Epo solely in the brain and mice that the researchers had injected with Epo and the hormone reached the brain thus by blood. Both mouse groups exhibited an increased performance on the treadmill compared to the untreated control animals. “We assume that Epo in the brain triggers a motivation boost to increase physical performance,” explains Professor Gassmann. He and his team are now testing the performance-enhancing effect of Epo on volunteers.
Epo probably has an impact on people’s moods, too. It might thus be used in patients who suffer from depression. The latest experiments conducted by a German-Danish research group reveal that Epo can also alleviate the condition of patients suffering from schizophrenia by improving their mental performance.
Source: Science Daily