Embodied Cognition Theories (ECT) postulate that higher-order cognition is heavily influenced by sensorimotor signals. We explored the active role of somatosensory afferents and motor efferents in modulating the perception of actions in people who have suffered a massive body-brain disconnection because of spinal cord injury (SCI), which leads to sensory-motor loss below the lesion. We assessed whether the habitual use of a wheelchair enhances the capacity to anticipate the endings of tool-related actions, with respect to actions that have become impossible. In a Temporal Occlusion task, three groups of participants (paraplegics, rollerbladers and physiotherapists) observed two sets of videos depicting an actor who attempted to climb onto a platform using a wheelchair or rollerblades. Three different outcomes were possible, namely: a) success (the actor went up the step); b) fail (the actor stopped before the step without going up) and c) fall (the actor fell without going up). Each video set comprised 5 different durations increasing in complexity: in the shortest (600ms) only preparatory body movements were shown and in the longest (3000ms) the complete action was shown. The participants were requested to anticipate the outcome (success, fail, fall). The main result showed that the SCI group performed better with the wheelchair videos and poorer with rollerblade videos than both groups, even if the physiotherapists group never used rollerblades. In line with the ECT, this suggests that the action anticipation skills are not only influenced by motor expertise, but also by motor connection.
rollerbladers
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Citation: Scandola M, Aglioti SM, Avesani R, Bertagnoni G, Marangoni A, Moro V (2019) Anticipation of wheelchair and rollerblade actions in spinal cord injured people, rollerbladers, and physiotherapists. PLoS ONE 14(3): e0213838.
Two control groups were involved in the study. The physiotherapists took part in the experiment in order for us to be able to ascertain whether pure visual expertise originating from them having worked with people in wheelchairs would play a similar role to the sensory-motor expertise that characterises SCI people. The rollerbladers (who had a great deal of experience with rollerblades but were inexperienced in the use of wheelchairs) took part in order for us to compare the role of expertise on action anticipation in healthy vs. deafferented/efferented people.
The following hypotheses were made: i) if somatosensory experience can modify action anticipation abilities even after lower limb deafferentation/deefferentation, then paraplegics should perform more accurately with the Wheelchair videos and rollerbladers should perform better with the Rollerblade videos; the performance of the physiotherapists should be average with both videos; ii) if neuroplasticity after SCI compromises the ability to build new action anticipation abilities, then paraplegics should not perform more accurately with the Wheelchair videos than the rollerbladers and physiotherapists, while rollerbladers should perform better with the Rollerblade videos; and iii) if a more general familiarity with a particular tool is sufficient for the task to be performed adequately then both paraplegics and physiotherapists should perform better than the rollerbladers with the Wheelchair videos. Finally, iv) due to the impact of defensive processes towards dangerous stimuli, we expected more efficient anticipatory responses to be triggered by the videos in which falls were displayed by respect to emotionally neutral stimuli.
In this study, we used a Temporal Occlusion paradigm [69] to investigate in SCI participants the role of new, post-lesional motor expertise and defensive components in the ability to anticipate the endings of actions. Based on the notion that expertise improves action anticipation skills [7], we explored the degree to which SCI participants with massive body brain deafferentation/deefferentation are able to predict the outcome of actions involving wheelchairs (which they have become familiar with from both a perceptual and motor point of view after their lesion) vs actions involving rollerblades (which are currently impossible and not performed before the lesion onset). This allowed us to investigate the effects of lesion-correlated new motor learnings in action discrimination. A group of physiotherapists who are expert in the rehabilitation of SCI patients was used to dissociate the effects of mere perceptual expertise with wheelchairs, and a group of expert rollerbladers permitted to control for the effects of different domain-specific expertise.
Question: I was skating the other day and wondering about how skaters/rollerbladers should behave on the roads. I am familiar with bike laws - a bicycle is treated like any other vehicle on the road with a few exceptions. What about inline skates? Especially if I'm training, skating pretty fast and consistently with the flow of traffic?
Answer: With the summer months beginning, there has been an increase in rollerbladers out sharing the roads with motorists. When on skates, you are subject to the same obligations as a bicyclist or a driver of an automobile and you must obey all traffic laws.
Throughout the week of July 11, Speak Up Africa worked with Rollercom, a communications organization that takes a unique approach to getting the word out for their clients. In order to mobilize momentum and support for the petition, rollerbladers were sent to the streets of Africa at Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar to educate students about Speak Up Africa and the specifics of the #EveryShotCounts petition.
Methodology: Injuries associated with the use of rollerblades, skateboards and rollerskates in young people aged
When we think of active transportation, we typically refer to walking and cycling, but spring and summer usually mean we see more skateboarders, rollerbladers and non-motorized scooters travelling around town too. Using active transportation is efficient and fun, but Road SMARTS reminders for skateboarders, rollerbladers, non-motorized scooters can help prevent injuries.
One of the reasons why rollerblading has become so popular in the past several years is because people have finally discovered a sport that is enjoyable, easy to do and gives you a great work-out all at the same time. I used to think rollerbladers had a certain smug, content look about them, and now, after trying rollerblading myself, I realize why. Anyone who hasn't given rollerblading a test is missing out big time. 2ff7e9595c
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