From Monday July 2nd through to July 5th 2012 the final meeting in the EU training project (CODDE), will be held in Amsterdam.
The meeting will examine how various kinds of information acquired at various moments are combined for making appropriate decisions. The decisions in question are decisions that underlie behaviour such as goal-directed eye and arm movements and movements of the whole body. The meeting will consider both sensory and motor issues in human performance and will include behavioural and brain imaging studies as well as computational modelling.
For more information about the speakers and how to register, please click here
The deadline for registration is April 1, or when the maximum number of delegates has been reached.
Andreas Daffertshofer has per January 1st 2012 been appointed professor in the chair Neural Dynamics. The chair is hosted by the faculty of Human Movement Sciences at VU University Amsterdam for an initial period of five years.
The chair Neural Dynamics has a primary focus on the neural underpinnings of motor control. Understanding these processes capitalizes on recent developments in modern-days physics, in particular the theory of complex dynamical systems and synergetics in its capacity of describing the phenomena of self-organization. Paradigmatic for self-organization is the appearance of bifurcations that will be studied mathematically and assessed experimentally using imaging techniques like M/EEG, fMRI, PET, and TMS. Dynamic connectivity and plasticity enable self-organization that should be viewed as a result of a dynamical optimization of functionality. The optimization relates, e.g., to signal-processing like spatial and temporal pattern recognition as well as to the timing, tuning, and coordination of movement. Unraveling these dynamics will involve concepts and models in computational neuroscience like the paradigmatic networks of phase oscillators that display emergent behavior.
Myrthe Plaisier, currently working on a NWO-Rubicon grant in Bielefeld and as a visiting sciencist at the FBW/HMS, on December 17th received the bi-annual dissertation award from the Dutch Psychonomics Society (NVP) for her thesis Haptic perception of multiple objects – Strategy, saliency and numerosity.
On January 13th 2012, Martin Truijens will defend his thesis entitled Work in Progress: Altitude Training and Adaptation in Swimming
The differences in competitive sport at the highest level are so small that they frequently are at the edge of scientific measurability. Moreover, the complexity of sports performance and the substantial individual variability in response to training, make them difficult to be fully understood by scientific theory. Therefore it is comprehensible that athletes and their coaches will adopt almost any strategy in their quest for ‘citius, altius, fortius’. In this regard altitude training seems a worthy strategy. It has been the focus of this thesis. Variations in the combination of exposure to hypoxia and exercise, and therewith variations in the use of acclimatization and training, have led to the different altitude training strategies applied in sports practice today. The purpose of each of these strategies is unanimously to gain maximal performance benefits. This raises the question which strategy to choose. The thesis attempted to contribute to the unraveling of this question.
Martin suggests the following rules of thumb: 1) hypoxic exercise for swimmers does not provide any physiological advantage over normoxic exercise and in the long run might even be detrimental to sea level performance, 2) 2,500m of altitude, for at least 12 hours per day, for a minimum of 3 to 4 weeks is necessary to acquire a robust acclimatization response with lower risk of altitude disturbances, 3) the optimal altitude training strategy for improvements in sea level performances is likely to be the “living high-training low” strategy, in which the benefits of altitude acclimatization are combined with those of normoxic training. Although these can be used as general rules for altitude training, there is substantial individual variability in the outcome of every altitude strategy, and more research is warranted to further unravel and optimize the individual dose-response relationship. It is recommended that the craftmanship of the trainer/coach is used for the interpretation and communication of results.
Dr. Dinant Kistemaker, who’s currently working as a postdoc at the U. of Western Ontario in Canada, has received a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant for a period of three years for his project Optimality principles in human sensorimotor control. Dinant who got his PhD from the VU University Amsterdam, will return to the faculty of HMS (FBW) for his research project.
The 6th VUmc Science Exchange Day will be held on March 9th 2012. The purpose of the Science Exchange Day is to stimulate interaction between the researchers from the 5 research institutes within the VU University Medical Center. The deadline for submitting your abstract has been postponed until January 1st 2012. Please consult the guidelines before submitting your abstract. The guidelines can be found here . Submit your abstract before January 1st 2012 to moveoffice.fbw@vu.nl
Dr. Corine Visscher has recevied a grant from the Royal Dutch Society for Physical Therapy (KNGF) for her project ‘The influence of comorbidity on the validity of palpation and of dynamic/static tests for the recognition of a local musculoskeletal pain’. The grant will be used to cover the costs of a 1-year research project.
Following Menno Benard’s PhD defence on December 2nd, a symposium will be held in the Kerkzaal at VU University Amsterdam starting at 2 pm. Menno Benard will give the initial talk entitled ‘Gastrocnemius Length of Children with Cerebral Palsy: Something is afoot’. The other speakers are Mark Smeulder, AMC, Kenneth Meijer, Maastricht University, Adam Shortland, King’s College London and Huub Maas of VU University Amsterdam. Please klick here for the complete program. Preceeding the symposium there will be a lunch. To register for the symposium please mail : mennobenard@hotmail.com
Watch our new MOV(i)E, starring Arnold de Haan, Astrid Bakker, Joost van Kordelaar, Dionne Noordhof and several volunteers in our research trials. The MOV(i)E is in Dutch.
