Psychophysiological Response and Fine Motor Skills in High-Altitude Parachute Jumps

Abstract

Clemente-Suárez, Vicente Javier, José Juan Robles-Pérez, Ketty Herrera-Mendoza, Beliña Herrera-Tapias, and Jesús Fernández-Lucas. Psychophysiological response and fine motor skills in high-altitude parachute jumps. High Alt Med Biol 18:392-399, 2017.-We analyzed the psychophysiological response and specific fine motor skill of an experienced jumper in HALO (high altitude low opening) and HAHO (high altitude high opening) parachute jumps. Eight HALO and eight HAHO jumpers were analyzed. They jumped at 5500 m, HALO jumpers opened the parachute at 500 m and HAHO jumpers at 4300 m of altitude. Before and after the jumps, parameters of muscle strength, cortical arousal, blood creatine kinase (CK) and glucose, blood oxygen saturation, rate of perceived exertion (RPE), and specific fine motor skills of an experienced jumper were assessed; during the jump, heart rate (HR), HR variability, and speed were evaluated. HALO and HAHO jumps produced a significant increase in CK, lactate, and RPE, and a decrease in glucose. HAHO decreased cortical arousal, presented a higher sympathetic modulation, and a higher HR during the jump than HALO. HALO and HAHO produced an increase in the physiological, sympathetic modulation and muscle destruction, and a decrease in cortical arousal and a higher blood lactate concentration only in the HAHO jump. Also, somatic and cognitive anxiety correlated with higher strength manifestation and muscle destruction. This novel research could be used to improve actual training systems in both civil and military parachute jumpers.

Evaluation of cortical arousal by critical flicker fusion threshold in cyclists

“…Only sprints stimuli can affect negative CNS. This result showed he influence of different physiological stimuli in cortical arousal, this information joining the knowledge about the effect of different psychological stimuli, like the negative effect of stress perception and the increased sympathetic nervous system associated in cortical arousal and information processing [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38], allow us a better compression of psychophysiology of CNS. In addition, the increase in CS values suggests that the subjective criterion is conservative, and change observed after incremental test was linked to a cautious strategy [39].…”

Effectiveness of Psycho-Physiological Portable Devices to Analyse Effect of Ergogenic Aids in Military Population

“…In addition, the ingestion of caffeine seems to increase the anxyogenic response of warfighters, fact that could be dangerous in situation of friend-foe discrimination soothing action or operations conducted in presence of unarmed civilians, as in the current theater of operations. It would be interesting for future researches to study the effect of caffeine intake in prolonged urban combat or parachute operations where cortical arousal and information processing levels are highly affected by combat stress [11,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] and caffeine could be a useful aid to maintain the marksmanship of warfighters in sustained combat operations.…”

Psychophysiological Stress Response in an Underwater Evacuation Training

“…Specifically in air force crews, previous research found how exposure to normobaric hypoxia training produced psychophysiological changes in sympathetic nervous system modulation, cortical arousal levels, and increments in stress hormones such as cortisol and testosterone levels among others [3,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. In this line, research on paratrooper also showed how high-altitude jumps (High Altitude Low Opening and High Altitude High Opening) produced an increase in the physiological response and sympathetic modulation in both jumps, according to the stress responses theory exposed by Selye [18], and a decrease in cortical arousal, which is a symptom of central nervous system (CNS) fatigue only in the HAHO jump, showing that both types of jumps are stressful stimuli for the paratroopers; besides, tactical automatic parachute jumps produced an increase in cortisol hormone production that is related with the activation of the fight-flight response that increases the sympathetic autonomic modulation [14,[17][18][19].…”

“…Finally, the heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), which refers to the autonomic modulation, were recorded with a Polar V800 heart rate monitor with RR measurement function (POLAR, Finland) and posteriorly analyzed by the Kubios HRV standard 3.2.0 software (University of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland) [14]. The parameters analyzed were as follows:…”