This study investigated the presence of neuropsychological deficits associated with hitting the ball with one's head (heading) during soccer play. A neuro-cognitive test battery was administered to 60 male soccer players, high school, amateur and professional level, and 12 nonplaying control participants. The effects of currently reported heading behavior as well as that of estimated lifetime h...

How do we determine where we are heading during visually controlled locomotion? Psychophysical research has shown that humans are quite good at judging their travel direction, or heading, from retinal optic flow. Here we show that retinal optic flow is sufficient, but not necessary, for determining heading. By using a purely cyclopean stimulus (random dot cinematogram), we demonstrate heading p...

BACKGROUND Soccer heading has been proposed as a potential cause of cerebral dysfunction. OBJECTIVE To examine the acute effects of two types of soccer heading on postural control. METHODS Collegiate soccer players were randomly assigned to one of four groups: control, linear heading, simulated rotational heading, or rotational heading. Each subject completed a baseline postural stability a...

Wayfinding is of vital importance if visually impaired pedestrians are to walk by themselves from one place to another, since they must calculate both their orientation and position. Here, a new haptic direction indicator is proposed, which will help blind pedestrians to avoid hazardous areas intuitively and safely by means of haptic navigation. A novel translational force perception method, ca...

Heading for a largely improved interface between individuals and electronics this paper presents enabling technologies for the integration of electronics into textile fabrics. For the realization of ‘wearable electronics’ we discuss a packaging and interconnect technology, a silicon-based micro-machined thermoelectric generator chip for energy harvesting from body heat, and an interwoven antenn...

The impact of heading on neuropsychological performance is a subject of controversy. In this experimental study, a controlled group design was used to investigate the possible effects of a short heading training session on neuropsychological performance. Ninety-one participants matched by age, sex, and intelligence were assigned to one of the following groups: A heading-training group, a placeb...

During self-motions, different patterns of optic flow are presented to the left and right eyes. Previous research has, however, focused mainly on the self-motion information contained in a single pattern of optic flow. The present experiments investigated the role that binocular disparity plays in the visual perception of self-motion, showing that the addition of stereoscopic cues to optic flow...

Eye or head rotation would influence perceived heading direction if it were coded by cells tuned only to retinal flow patterns that correspond to linear self-movement. We propose a model for heading detection based on motion templates that are also Gaussian-tuned to the amount of rotational flow. Such retinal flow templates allow explicit use of extra-retinal signals to create templates tuned t...

The chlorophyll content is one of the most important traits selected by breeders, and it is controlled by quantitative trait loci (QTLs) derived from natural variations in rice. We analyzed the QTL controlling chlorophyll content by using 94 RILs derived from a cross between 2 japonica rice cultivars, Lijiangxintuanheigu (LTH) and Shennong265 (SN265). Twenty-two QTLs controlling chlorophyll con...