Exercise and manual auricular acupuncture:a pilot assessor-blind randomised controlled trial. (The acupuncture and personalised exercise programme (APEP) trial)

Evidence supports the use of exercise for chronic low back pain (CLBP); however, adherence is often poor due to ongoing pain. Auricular acupuncture is a form of pain relief involving the stimulation of points on the outer ear corresponding with specific body parts. It may be a useful adjunct to exercise in managing CLBP; however, there is only limited evidence to support its use with this patient group.

Spatial updating across saccades during manual interception

We studied the effect of intervening saccades on the manual interception of a moving target. Previous studies suggest that stationary reach goals are coded and updated across saccades in gaze-centered coordinates, but whether this generalizes to interception is unknown. Subjects (n = 9) reached to manually intercept a moving target after it was rendered invisible. Subjects either fixated throughout the trial or made a saccade before reaching (both fixation points were in the range of -10° to 10°). Consistent with previous findings and our control experiment with stationary targets, the interception errors depended on the direction of the remembered moving goal relative to the new eye position, as if the target is coded and updated across the saccade in gaze-centered coordinates. However, our results were also more variable in that the interception errors for more than half of our subjects also depended on the goal direction relative to the initial gaze direction. This suggests that the feedforward transformations for interception differ from those for stationary targets. Our analyses show that the interception errors reflect a combination of biases in the (gaze-centered) representation of target motion and in the transformation of goal information into body-centered coordinates for action.

Prospective control of manual interceptive actions:comparative simulations of extant and new model constructs

Two prospective controllers of hand movements in catching-both based on required velocity control-were simulated. Under certain conditions, this required velocity control led to overshoots of the future interception point. These overshoots were absent in pertinent experiments. To remedy this shortcoming, the required velocity model was reformulated in terms of a neural network, the Vector Integration To Endpoint model, to create a Required Velocity Integration To Endpoint model. Addition of a parallel relative velocity channel, resulting in the Relative and Required Velocity Integration To Endpoint model, provided a better account for the experimentally observed kinematics than the existing, purely behavioral models. Simulations of reaching to intercept decelerating and accelerating objects in the presence of background motion were performed to make distinct predictions for future experiments.

The role of areas MT+/V5 and SPOC in spatial and temporal control of manual interception: an rTMS study

Manual interception, such as catching or hitting an approaching ball, requires the hand to contact a moving object at the right location and at the right time. Many studies have examined the neural mechanisms underlying the spatial aspects of goal-directed reaching, but the neural basis of the spatial and temporal aspects of manual interception are largely unknown. Here, we used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to investigate the role of the human middle temporal visual motion area (MT+/V5) and superior parieto-occipital cortex (SPOC) in the spatial and temporal control of manual interception. Participants were required to reach-to-intercept a downward moving visual target that followed an unpredictably curved trajectory, presented on a screen in the vertical plane. We found that rTMS to MT+/V5 influenced interceptive timing and positioning, whereas rTMS to SPOC only tended to increase the spatial variance in reach end points for selected target trajectories. These findings are consistent with theories arguing that distinct neural mechanisms contribute to spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal control of manual interception.

Manual mapping of drumlins in synthetic landscapes to assess operator effectiveness

Mapped topographic features are important for understanding processes that sculpt the Earth’s surface. This paper presents maps that are the primary product of an exercise that brought together 27 researchers with an interest in landform mapping wherein the efficacy and causes of variation in mapping were tested using novel synthetic DEMs containing drumlins. The variation between interpreters (e.g. mapping philosophy, experience) and across the study region (e.g. woodland prevalence) opens these factors up to assessment. A priori known answers in the synthetics increase the number and strength of conclusions that may be drawn with respect to a traditional comparative study. Initial results suggest that overall detection rates are relatively low (34–40%), but reliability of mapping is higher (72–86%). The maps form a reference dataset.