Introduction: In this study we compared transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) elicited motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in a postural (bilateral low back extension: BLBE) and a respiratory (forced expiration during breath holding: FEBH) task.Methods: Using TMS of the left motor cortex, simultaneous patterns of corticospinal facilitation of the contralateral erector spinae (ES) and rectus abdomi...

background:: this study aimed to quantify the prevalence of low back pain (lbp), analyze its associated risk factors and explore on how lbp affects job satisfaction among 120 school teachers in malaysia. method: a cross-sectional study was conducted among randomly selected teachers from four secondary schools in putrajaya from february to march 2015. the level of lbp was assessed using a standa...

BACKGROUND To test whether working body schema of the trunk is disrupted in people with back pain using a motor imagery task in which one decides whether a pictured model has their trunk rotated to the left or to the right. The authors hypothesised that chronic back pain is associated with reduced accuracy of left/right trunk rotation judgements. METHODS 21 Patients with back pain and 14 cont...

According to theoretical accounts, both, N-back and complex span tasks mainly require working memory (WM) processing. In contrast, simple span tasks conceptually mainly require WM storage. Thus, conceptually, an N-back task and a complex span task share more commonalities as compared to a simple span task. In the current study, we compared an N-back task, a complex operation span task (Ospan), ...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation and neuroimaging data have revealed bilateral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) involvement during verbal n-back working memory (WM). In this task as n (i.e., WM load) increases, subjects show poorer behavioral performance as well as greater activation of this brain area. Moreover, there is evidence that a brief period of practice or even increased familiarity wi...