Also Included In: Sports Medicine / Fitness; Bones / Orthopedics
Article Date: 17 Aug 2012 - 1:00 PDT
Current ratings for:
Brain Scans Reveal Distinctive Features In The Brain Structure Of Karate Experts Which Correlate With Punching Ability
| Patient / Public: |  | |
| Healthcare Prof: |  | 4.33 (3 votes) |
Karate experts are able to generate extremely powerful forces with their punches, but how they do this is not fully understood. Previous studies have found that the force generated in a karate punch is not determined by muscular strength, suggesting that factors related to the control of muscle movement by the brain might be important.
The study, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, looked for differences in brain structure between 12 karate practitioners with a black belt rank and an average of 13.8 years' karate experience, and 12 control subjects of similar age who exercised regularly but did not have any martial arts experience.
The researchers tested how powerfully the subjects could punch, but to make useful comparisons with the punching of novices they restricted the task to punching from short range - a distance of 5 centimetres. The subjects wore infrared markers on their arms and torso to capture the speed of their movements.
As expected, the karate group punched harder. The power of their punches seemed to be down to timing: the force they generated correlated with how well the movement of their wrists and shoulders were synchronised.
Brain scans showed that the microscopic structure in certain regions of the brain differed between the two groups. Each brain region is composed of grey matter, consisting of the main bodies of nerve cells, and white matter, which is mainly made up of bundles of fibres that carry signals from one region to another. The scans used in this study, called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), detected structural differences in the white matter of parts of the brain called the cerebellum and the primary motor cortex, which are known to be involved in controlling movement.
The differences measured by DTI in the cerebellum correlated with the synchronicity of the subjects' wrist and shoulder movements when punching. The DTI signal also correlated with the age at which karate experts began training and their total experience of the discipline. These findings suggest that the structural differences in the brain are related to the black belts' punching ability.
"Most research on how the brain controls movement has been based on examining how diseases can impair motor skills," said Dr Ed Roberts, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London, who led the study. "We took a different approach, by looking at what enables experts to perform better than novices in tests of physical skill.
"The karate black belts were able to repeatedly coordinate their punching action with a level of coordination that novices can't produce. We think that ability might be related to fine tuning of neural connections in the cerebellum, allowing them to synchronise their arm and trunk movements very accurately.
"We're only just beginning to understand the relationship between brain structure and behaviour, but our findings are consistent with earlier research showing that the cerebellum plays a critical role in our ability to produce complex, coordinated movements.
"There are several factors that can affect the DTI signal, so we can't say exactly what features of the white matter these differences correspond to. Further studies using more advanced techniques will give us a clearer picture."
Visit our neurology / neuroscience section for the latest news on this subject.
RE Roberts et al. ‘Individuals differences in expert motor coordination associated with white matter microstructure in the cerebellum.’ http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/08/08/cercor.bhs219.short?rss=1Cerebral Cortex, 15 August 2012. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs219
Imperial College London
MLA
n.p. "Brain Scans Reveal Distinctive Features In The Brain Structure Of Karate Experts Which Correlate With Punching Ability." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 17 Aug. 2012. Web.
19 Aug. 2012. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/249108.php>
APA
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/249108.php.
Please note: If no author information is provided, the source is cited instead.
'Brain Scans Reveal Distinctive Features In The Brain Structure Of Karate Experts Which Correlate With Punching Ability'
Please note that we publish your name, but we do not publish your email address. It is only used to let you know when your message is published. We do not use it for any other purpose. Please see our privacy policy for more information.
If you write about specific medications or operations, please do not name health care professionals by name.
All opinions are moderated before being included (to stop spam)
Contact Our News Editors
For any corrections of factual information, or to contact the editors please use our feedback form.
Please send any medical news or health news press releases to:
Note: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our terms and conditions.
Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/249108.php
Full Report Read Full Article Read Full Report Get the facts
No comments:
Post a Comment