Failure In the Trusted Football Helmets
A new study to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia this spring reveals that football helmets is current use on the field may be doing little to protect against rotational forces, one of the most dangerous sources of brain injury in football players.
Approved by the National Operating Committee on Standard for Athletic Equipment, researches modified the standard drop test system, testing impacts and safety of helmets. Using crash test dummy head and necks they stimulated multiple 12 mph impacts while measuring linear and rotational responses. 10 popular football helmet designs were tested 330 times to determine how well they protected against traumatic brain injury. These designs included Adams a2000, Rawlings Quantum, Riddell 360, Riddell Revolution, Riddell Revolution Speed, Riddell VSR4, Schutt Air Advantage, Schutt DNA Pro+, Xenith X1 and Xenith X2.
Compared to not wearing a helmet, football helmets only reduced risk of traumatic brain injury by rotational impacts by 20% on average. ‘"Alarmingly, those that offered the least protection are among the most popular on the field," said co-author Frank Conidi, MD, DO, MS, “Yet generations of football and other sports participants have been under the assumption that their brains are protected by their investment in head wear protection."’
The study identified that football helmets provided protection from bruising and skull fracture, or linear impacts, up to 70% than without helmets. Overall revealing that the leading helmet designs are not protecting the leading cause of injuries on the field, rotational impacts, and strengthens the cry for increased safety in design of football helmets.
Music and Mood
Research from Kent AND Limerick Universities show that sad yet beautiful music can lead to a better, more optimistic mood after feeling bad. Researchers looked into music known a SISM, (Self-Identified Sad Music) and how it effects people. More specifically, they paid attention to why they chose a particular piece of music. The study showed that those listening to the music because it was sad were not seeking to better their mood, but those who were searching for beautiful music that matched their mellow moods was a strategy used to enhance mood. It was shown that a factor in choosing music was the memory that the particular music choice invokes, and what emotions are conveyed through the type of music. Overall, the choice of what music we listen to is a direct effect of what we expect from music and what effect it will have on them in the long run. Results of the research show that people listening to music in order to improve their mood are more likely to be distracted at first by the situation at hand, (whatever put them in their bad mood) and not necessarily the music they are listening to. Many times the participants reported choosing the music to trigger the bad memories, which limited progress of creating a better mood in the individual. The only way that the participants were successful in enhancing their mood was when the music was thought of as being beautiful, instead of sad and relatable to the sad things going on in their lives.
Social Understandings of the Brain
Researchers from Aarahus University and the University of Copenhagen show that brain cells in the mirror system help people make sense of the actions that are done by people in everyday life. With a magnetic stimulation, the normal processing of the human brain that controls the production of actions was interrupted, showed these areas of the brain are also involved with the understanding of actions. The study proved the area that produces actions is also involved in the area that understands them. This study can also help to understand the difficulties in social patterns with people who are autistic or schizophrenic. With knowleged of the process of social understanding in people is of great help to understand the causes of social difficulties in people. The study contained twenty adults who visited the lab on three spate occasions. In the first visit brain scans were done, on their second and third visit a stimulation to their motor system occurred and then watched brief videos. Then they then had to choose a picture of an object that was associated with the task in the video they watched. This task was performed to see how they understood their observed actions. The stimulation was used in order to determine the brain areas that perform the certain functions. The effect was only temporary and harmless towards the individual that it was performed on.
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