Physiological and Cognitive Factors Related to Human Performance During the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim Hike

Abstract

Exposure to extreme environments is both mentally and physically taxing, leading to suboptimal performance and even life-threatening emergencies. Physiological and cognitive monitoring could provide the earliest indicator of performance decline and inform appropriate therapeutic intervention, yet little research has explored the relationship between these markers in strenuous settings. The Rim-to-Rim Wearables at the Canyon for Health (R2R WATCH) study is a research project at Sandia National Laboratories funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to identify which physiological and cognitive phenomena collected by non-invasive wearable devices are the most related to performance in extreme environments. In a pilot study, data were collected from civilians and military warfighters hiking the Rim-to-Rim trail at the Grand Canyon. Each participant wore a set of devices collecting physiological, cognitive, and environmental data such as heart rate, memory, ambient temperature, etc. Promising preliminary results found correlates between physiological markers recorded by the wearable devices and decline in cognitive abilities, although further work is required to refine those measurements. Planned follow-up studies will validate these findings and further explore outstanding questions.

Concurrent heart rate validity of wearable technology devices during trail running

“…The Suunto Spartan Sport device has been evaluated with respect to step count accuracy [36], and proposed as a wearable capable of returning the cardiorespiratory fitness component of an integrated cross-modal cybernetic health status assessment [37]. The device has also been utilized in an outdoor environment to track altitude profile during a 64 km ultra-endurance race [38] and Grand Canyon rim to rim hike [39], and pacing and stride variations during a 44 km trail run performed in tropical conditions [40]. To our knowledge, concurrent heart rate validity has not been determined compared to a criterion measure.…”

Expedition Cognition: A Review and Prospective of Subterranean Neuroscience With Spaceflight Applications

“…An actigraph is a device that can monitor movement, usually via wrist-worn accelerometers that record movements over periods of days. Some inexpensive options include those that are available commercially to consumers to track energy expenditure for fitness purposes, which have already have been used in a few studies, for example looking at physiological factors related to human performance during hiking (Divis et al, 2018 ). Wrist actigraphs can also provide basic information about sleep-wake cycles, and have been used in studies on sleep deprivation and sleep patterns of astronauts during spaceflight (Barger et al, 2014 ), and to evaluate sleep-wake circadian rhythm maintainance during Mars500 (Frey, 2013 ).…”

Predicting fatigue from heart rate signatures using functional logistic regression

“…Physical fatigue can have negative consequences related to performance. One of the goals of WATCH was to be able to assess and predict physical fatigue in real time using wearable devices (Aviña et al, 2017; Divis et al, 2018). The aim of this study was to predict whether a participant was fatigued using only their HR signature.…”

“…All participants were volunteers, and institutional review board approval was granted. More details on the data collection and protocol are described in Aviña et al (2017) and Divis et al (2018).…”