Sports
Studies of expertise in sports using movement and gaze analysis as well as analyses of neural correlates. Main topics are prevention of behavioural and neural deficits following (sub-)concussions in contact sports and of dystonia in precision skills. Used methods encompass motion capture, eye tracking, video analyses and neuroimaging as well as modern wearables.
Impact of football headers on brain structure and function
Jan Kern, Joachim Hermsdörfer
Since July 2017 the Chair of Human Movement Science at TUM has been taking part in a collaborative research project funded by the Federal Institute of Sports Science (BISP). Our aim is to analyze the cumulative effects of headers in female soccer players during two football seasons including practice sessions and games. Using wearable head-accelerometers and video analyses we plan to register and evaluate whether headers may induce changes in cognitive, sensorimotor, neuropsychological and vestibular functions and how this is related to quantity and intensity. Furthermore, by means of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) we will examine the presence of structural and functional brain changes associated with the headers. The first phase of the study was completed in November when we performed different MRI-sequences together with an assessment protocol including neuropsychological, sensorimotor, and balance tests. After a period of two years a second phase of assessments will be conducted following the same procedure as in the first phase. Currently, we are matching the impact data collected by the sensors with the videos from practice sessions and first games of the season.
Funding: Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft https://www.bisp-sht.de/SHT/DE/Home/home_node.html
Golf
Joachim Hermsdörfer, Ferdinand Tusker
Writers’ Cramp and Musicians’ Cramp are considered task-specific dystonias. Yips during golf putting reveal similar disturbance characteristics. The present study investigates possible cause of Yips and evaluates treatment approaches.
Action Anticipation and Prediction in Athletes
Waltraud Stadler
Behavior shapes the brain and experience generates a repertoire of possibilities to interact with the environment and with other individuals. We are interested in how sensorimotor experience gained during years of training modulates the perception of action and motorcognition. To study motor cognitive tasks and to get insight into the cues that experts use during anticipating, we employ accuracy and reaction time measures, psychophysical methods, use qualitative approaches and eye-tracking.
A second branch addresses the neural mechanisms underlying the prediction of action in experts and non-experts. We are currently studying a cortical network specific to action prediction and aim at defining the boundary conditions of its involvement. Behavioral measures are combined with functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
Experts in volleyball, taekwondo and also basketball and figure skating participated in our studies which were performed in cooperation with the female volleyball team of SV Lohhof, with the German Taekwondo Union (DTU) and others. For brain imaging studies, we cooperate with Dr. Afra Wohlschläger and Dr. Kathrin Koch at Neurokopfzentrum and Neuroimaging Center at Klinikum rechts der Isar.
Cross et al., 2013; Diersch et al., 2013; Stadler et al., 2012