Taking sports science in her stride: How Dr. Nerea Casal García aims to maximize performance on the track

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Dr Nerea Casal García

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Credit: Nerea Casal García

The following is a Q&A with Dr Nerea Casal García, a sports scientist focusing on sports training and performance optimization. To speak to the author, or to receive an advance copy of the paper, please write to: press@frontiersin.org The paper will be published on 27 Feb 2025 06:15 CET]

Dr Nerea Casal García is an athlete, personal coach, and injury readaptation specialist who last year completed a PhD on observational analysis in elite sports. Today, she is a professor at the Institut Nacional d'Educació Física de Catalunya of the University of Lleida, focusing on the theory and practice of training and performance optimization.

Casal García is the corresponding author on a new study in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, which revealed major shift over the past five years in the stride patterns of female elite athletes during 400 meter hurdle competitions – a change that went together with a marked improvement in performance. Here, she answers our questions about her research and career as an sportswoman, coach, and scientist.

What inspired you to become a researcher?

In my case, curiosity played the most significant role. During my years studying sports sciences, I constantly wondered how different training methods might work or how to optimize the performance of the athletes I coached. Moreover, I have always enjoyed teaching, so the opportunity to combine research and education led me to pursue an academic career after completing my master's degree. Having always practiced athletics, I became increasingly aware, through my experience as a coach, of the gaps in training information that could benefit both coaches and athletes. This realization ultimately inspired me to focus on research in this field.

Can you tell us about the research you’re currently working on?

I am currently continuing my work in performance analysis in athletics. Specifically, along with my research group, I conduct biomechanical analyses in high-level competitions. At the same time, I combine this with new projects aimed at studying the different athlete profiles and identifying the key variables that determine performance in various events. We hope that these projects can provide valuable insights on how to tailor athlete training based on their individual characteristics.

In your opinion, why is your research important?

In sports, every athlete strives for maximum performance, dedicating countless hours to achieving even the slightest improvement. This is why coaches seek ways to optimize performance within the available time and conditions. To enhance performance as efficiently as possible, it is essential to conduct studies on different events to understand which variables are key to performance and which methods or techniques may be most effective. At the same time, such research allows us to explain individual variability in athletes’ performances. I believe that the research we conduct is crucial for supporting coaches by providing valuable information and ensuring they have access to the most relevant data to enhance their athletes’ performance.

Are there any common misconceptions about this area of research? How would you address them?

I believe that results obtained from very specific samples, such as Olympic finalists, are sometimes overly generalized. While having as much information as possible is essential, it is equally important to recognize that individualization is a fundamental principle in sports training. At the same time, I believe this is a field that requires a high degree of applicability. Therefore, it is essential to produce scientific knowledge that is clearly applicable to the real-world context of performance and is easily understandable for coaches.

What are some of the areas of research you’d like to see tackled in the years ahead?

I believe that technology is advancing rapidly, and in the coming years, we will be able to obtain much more precise data on internal load and biomechanical variables. This will allow us to take research to the next level. I hope we will have a wealth of real-time information on athletes' performance in the near future.

How has open science benefited the reach and impact of your research?

Many sports coaches are not connected to the academic world, making it difficult for them to access this information, which is often used only by researchers. However, open-access research allows all coaches to access this knowledge, bridging the gap between academia and practical application.

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Journal

Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

DOI

10.3389/fspor.2025.1515441 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Changes in stride pattern of elite women's 400 metres hurdles from 2019 to 2022: an analysis by performance level

Article Publication Date

27-Feb-2025

 

Nuns contribute 30 years of critical insight into dementia disorders, UT Health San Antonio study reveals

Landmark ‘Nun Study’ initiative now housed at Biggs Institute

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

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SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 26, 2025 – Catholic nuns don’t make a habit of participating in long-term studies on aging and dementia, but one notable exception has yielded critical insights into cognitive resilience, neuropathology and aging-related disorders.

Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) published a study analyzing more than 30 years of aging and dementia patterns of 678 nuns from the School Sisters of Notre Dame enrolled in the aptly named Nun Study, conceived by epidemiologist and neurology professor David A. Snowdon, PhD, in 1986.

It now is housed at UT Health San Antonio’s Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases, under the direction of Margaret Flanagan, MD, tenured associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine.

Among takeaways from this latest analysis: Some individuals showed resilience to cognitive decline despite an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, indicating unknown protective mechanisms at work, and that early-life linguistic ability and grammatical complexity correlated with a lower risk of impairment in later life.

Also, advanced digital pathology techniques and artificial intelligence are reshaping the study of Alzheimer’s and related dementias. It all portends advancement for preventive intervention in cognitive decline.

“By leveraging this unique cohort of Catholic nuns with homogeneous lifestyles and rigorous longitudinal assessments, the study has clarified key factors influencing dementia risk and protection,” Flanagan said. “The work underscores the need for multilayered comprehensive approaches that account for multiple pathologies in dementia research and highlights the promise of AI-driven neuropathology.”

Flanagan is senior author of the study titled, “The Nun Study: Insights from 30 years of aging and dementia research,” published Feb. 26 by Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. Other authors also are with the Biggs Institute and the departments of pathology or neurology at UT Health San Antonio. First author of the study is MD/PhD student Kyra Clarke.

One of the most significant

The new Nun Study analysis describes “one of the most significant longitudinal aging and dementia studies.”

Snowdon founded the initiative while at the University of Minnesota and then later took it with him to the University of Kentucky. With his retirement in 2008, the study returned to the University of Minnesota. The study briefly moved again to Northwestern University in 2021 when Flanagan was there, and then to UT Health San Antonio.

Cloistered and homogenous, the cohort of American nuns 75 years of age or older at the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a worldwide institute of Roman Catholic sisters, proved ideal for study, minimizing variables like smoking or differences in access to health care that may have confounded similar research.

While all 678 participants now have passed away, the study remains alive and vibrant at the Biggs Institute, with research currently being performed on donated brain autopsy material and the extensive data collected during the nuns’ lives, Flanagan said.

The participants consented to undergoing annual neuropsychological assessments, allowing researchers access to convent archives and medical records, plus the post-mortem brain donation. The new study investigated the associations between epidemiological factors, cognitive function and brain pathology.

Among the findings:

• Cognitive resilience and neuropathology: The study identifies factors contributing to cognitive resilience despite the presence of Alzheimer’s pathology. Some individuals exhibited high neuropathological burden but remained cognitively intact, indicating unknown protective mechanisms.
   
• APOE genotypes and dementia risk: The article discusses the role of APOE e4 and e2 in Alzheimer’s risk and cognitive preservation. The Apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene plays a role in the metabolism of fats in the brain. APOE e4 is a risk gene that increases the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease. APOE e2 is a protective gene that may reduce the risk.
   
• Early-life predictors of cognitive health: The relationship between early-life linguistic ability and later-life cognitive function is a major finding. High idea density and grammatical complexity in young adulthood correlated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment in later life.
   
• Comorbid neuropathologies and dementia risk: The study emphasizes that most cases of dementia involve mixed pathologies, including LATE, HS-A and vascular pathology, rather than pure Alzheimer’s disease. LATE refers to Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a type of dementia that affects people as they age. It is often caused by abnormal clumps of a protein called TDP-43 in the brain. HS-A, or hippocampal sclerosis of aging, is damage in the hippocampus that happens with age, affecting memory. LATE and HS-A are underrecognized but impactful. LATE is distinct from Alzheimer’s disease but frequently co-exists with it. HS-A is a major contributor to dementia in the oldest-old. The presence of these multiple brain pathologies suggest that multi-targeted therapeutic strategies may be necessary.
   
• Advancements in digital pathology: The study highlights how digital spatial profiling and machine learning are revolutionizing neuropathological assessments today. Digital pathology and AI are reshaping neuropathology research. Whole slide imaging, spatial transcriptomics and machine-learning models are providing novel insights into brain pathology and paving the way for precision diagnostics.

“The findings from the Nun Study have significantly advanced our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorder neuropathologies,” Flanagan said. “As all the studies comprehensively described in this review have indicated, there is still a need for ongoing investigation into the multifactorial nature of cognitive decline, particularly in aging populations.

“However, we also highlight promising opportunities for biomarker development and providing us with the opportunity to identify and delineate potential targets for preventive intervention in cognitive decline,” she said.

Separately, Flanagan, a native of Ireland who completed her medical training at Trinity College Dublin, recently was highlighted by the Women in Medicine in Ireland Network. Each Sunday, it chooses “another great female medic, past or present,” and acknowledges “their contribution to medicine in Ireland,” according to its website. The initiative posted an article highlighting her roles at UT Health San Antonio.

Last year, she received a $100,000 Rising STARs award from the University of Texas Board of Regents to advance research relating to Alzheimer’s Disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.

UT Health San Antonio is a world-class research university, ranking at the top 5% among institutions globally for clinical medicine according to U.S. News & World Report. It is No. 12 in the world among universities for the impact of its discoveries – in normalized citation impact, which compares the number of citations its research receives per paper to the average for similar published work, a recognized core measure of research impact.


The Nun Study: Insights from 30 years of aging and dementia research

Kyra M. Clarke, Shahroo Etemadmoghadam, Benjamin Danner, Cole Corbett, Ali Ghaseminejad-Bandpey, Matthew Dopler, Julie Parker-Garza, Mohammad Alhneif, Sahana Babu, Oluwaseun B. Ogunbona, Angelique D. Gonzalez, Arash Salardini, Margaret E. Flanagan

First published: Feb. 26, 2025, Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association

Link to full study: https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.14626

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio), a primary driver of San Antonio’s $44.1 billion health care and biosciences sector, is the largest academic research institution in South Texas with an annual research portfolio of more than $436 million. Driving substantial economic impact with its six professional schools, a diverse workforce of more than 9,400, an annual expense budget of $1.67 billion and clinical practices that provide 2.5 million patient visits each year, UT Health San Antonio plans continued growth over the next five years and anticipates adding more than 1,500 higher-wage jobs to serve San Antonio, Bexar County and the South Texas region. To learn about the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit UTHealthSA.org.

The Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases is dedicated to providing comprehensive dementia care while advancing treatment through clinical trials and research. The Biggs Institute is a National Institute on Aging (NIA)-designated Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC). In addition to patient care and research, the Biggs Institute partners with the School of Nursing at UT Health Science Center San Antonio to offer the Caring for the Caregiver program. 

Stay connected with The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

 

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Journal

Alzheimer s & Dementia

DOI

10.1002/alz.14626 

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Nun Study: Insights from 30 years of aging and dementia research

Article Publication Date

26-Feb-2025

 ACCELERATIONISM

Human chromosomes evolved at hyperspeed to give us better brains

University of California - San Francisco

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Human Chromosomes Evolved at Hyperspeed to Give Us Better Brains 

A study of artificial human and chimpanzee nerve cells revealed how faster-evolving DNA gives neurons the ability to build increasingly complex brain power  

 

How did humans evolve brains capable of complex language, civilization, and more?   

  

The answer could lie in exceptional DNA. Scientists at UC San Francisco found that parts of our chromosomes have evolved at breakneck speeds to give us an edge in brain development compared to apes. But it might also put us at risk for uniquely human brain disorders.  

  

The study, which was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, appears in Nature on Feb. 26. 

  

The research focused on parts of chromosomes known as human accelerated regions (HARs), which have evolved most rapidly since humans split from chimpanzees on the evolutionary tree – changing 10 times faster than the expected rate of evolution in mammals.  

  

The scientists, led by Yin Shen, PhD, professor in the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences and the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics, studied the effects of HARs in artificial neurons derived from human and chimpanzee cell lines.   

  

The human and chimpanzee genomes are 99% similar. HARs make up a big portion of the 1% difference, which can lead to dramatically different outcomes in human and chimp neurons in petri dishes. The human neurons grew multiple neurites, or wiry projections that help the nerve cells send and receive signals. But the chimp neurons only grew single neurites.  When human HARs were engineered into artificial chimp neurons, the chimp neurons grew many more of these wires.   

  

“More neurites during development could mean more complexity in our neural networks,” Shen said. “These networks facilitate the transmission of signals in the nervous system and support our higher cognitive functions. But disruptions in their development may contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.”  

  

Authors: Other UCSF authors are Xiekui Cui, PhD, Han Yang, PhD, Charles Cai, Cooper Beaman, Xiaoyu Yang, PhD, Hongjiang Liu, Xingjie Ren, PhD, Zachary Amador, Ian R. Jones, Kathleen C. Keough, PhD, Meng Zhang, PhD, MS, Tyler Fair, PhD, Zhen Ye, Alex A. Pollen, PhD, and Katherine S. Pollard, PhD. For all authors see the paper. 

  

Funding: This work was supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants U01DA052713, UM1HG009402, R21DA056293, R21HG010065, R01MH109907, U01MH116438, DP2MH122400-01, P30DK063720, and S101S10OD021822-01; the Schmidt Futures Foundation; the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub; and the Gladstone Institutes. For all funding see the paper.   

 

 

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF’s primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF School of Medicine also has a regional campus in Fresno. Learn more at ucsf.edu or see our Fact Sheet. 
 

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Journal

Nature

 

Shark activity in South African reef revealed by citizen scientist scuba divers

Shark sightings displayed distinct seasonal patterns, and mostly showed positive trends over six years of records

PLOS

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Oceanic blacktip shark, Protea Banks, South Africa.

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Credit: William Hughes, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Shark sightings by scuba divers reveal the movements of marine predators throughout the year, according to a study published February 26, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by George Balchin, William Hughes and colleagues at the University of Sussex, U.K., and Aquaplanet Dive Center, South Africa.

Many sharks move through different habitats as they follow food or search for mates. Since they are major predators, they change the shape of the ecosystems they visit. Examining these movements is key to understanding the health of ocean habitats as well as the impacts of human activity, but it is notoriously difficult to get the long-term data needed. In this study, Balchin and colleagues compiled citizen science data on shark sightings from professional scuba divers working in diving tourism. The dataset included over 5,300 sightings of six shark species, including hammerhead sharks, tiger sharks and bull sharks, between 2013 and 2019 in the Protea Banks reef of South Africa.

The data revealed that all six species came and went with the seasons, though they followed their own schedules, with hammerhead sightings more frequent in the spring and tiger sharks more abundant in autumn, for example. The team also identified changes from year to year. During the studied period, for instance, hammerhead shark, blacktip shark and ragged-tooth shark sightings increased; tiger shark sightings were stable, and bull shark and dusky shark sightings decreased. In some cases, these changes are likely to reflect broad-scale changes in the behavior or population of these species – for example, population growth in those shark species which now have protected status.

This information regarding which sharks are present at which times is very valuable for planning fishing guidelines or conservation efforts throughout the year. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the potential of diving tourism as a source for citizen science data. The authors suggest that future studies might expand their reach to new areas, as well as accounting for potential biases in this study’s data by involving more varied habitats or types of dives.

The authors add: “Our study provides a really good example of how shark diving operators and scientists, working together, can provide the important long-term information on shark population dynamics that's needed for shark conservation.”

 

 

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/4hY4zWO

Citation: Balchin GP, Schuller A, di Stefano I, Robertson M, Pollard K, Hughes WOH (2025) Seasonality, long-term trends and co-occurrence of sharks in a top predator assemblage. PLoS ONE 20(2): e0318011. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318011

Author countries: U.K., South Africa

Funding: The study was funded by the Fisheries Society of the British Isles https://fsbi.org.uk (GPB). The funders did not play any roles in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0318011 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Seasonality, long-term trends and co-occurrence of sharks in a top predator assemblage

Article Publication Date

26-Feb-2025

Eavesdropping on whale songs sparks new discoveries in whale ecology

Variation in detected whale songs is linked with shifting food sources

PLOS

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Example photo of a humpback whale fluke from which identification of individuals is enabled through distinction of fluke shape and coloration. This photo by T. Cheeseman is of the individual most frequently identified in the Monterey Bay region during the study period, Fran, who was killed by a ship strike in August 2022.

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Credit: Ryan et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

Eavesdropping on baleen whale songs in the Pacific Ocean reveals year-to-year variations that track changes in the availability of the species they forage on, reports a new study led by John Ryan, of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), U.S., published February 26, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One.

In the vast oceans, monitoring populations of large marine animals can be a major challenge for ecologists. Scientists deploy underwater microphones called hydrophones to study and track baleen whales, which communicate over long distances through sound. In the new paper, researchers monitored songs from blue, fin and humpback whales off the West Coast of the United States for six years, to see what the song data could reveal about the health of their ecosystem.

The researchers saw large year-to-year variations in whale song detection. The amount of humpback whale song continually increased, with their songs being detected on 34% of days at the beginning of the study and rising to 76% of days after six years. These increases consistently tracked improved foraging conditions for humpback whales across all study years, large increases in krill abundance, followed by large increases in anchovy abundance. In contrast, blue and fin whale song rose primarily during the years of increasing krill abundance. This distinction of humpback whales is consistent with their ability to switch between dominant prey. An analysis of skin biopsy samples confirmed that changes had occurred in the whales’ diets. Other factors, including the local abundance of whales, may have contributed to patterns in song detections observed in some years, but changes in foraging conditions were the most consistent factor.

Overall, the study indicates that seasonal and annual changes in the amount of baleen whale song detected may mirror shifts in the local food web. The results suggest that an understanding of the relationship between whale song detection and food availability may help researchers to interpret future hydrophone data, both for scientific research and whale management efforts.

John Ryan, a biological oceanographer at MBARI and the lead author of this study, adds: “Surprisingly, the acoustic behavior of baleen whales provides insights about which species can better adapt to changing ocean conditions. Our findings can help resource managers and policymakers better protect endangered whales.”

 

 

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/41jvLtU

Citation: Ryan JP, Oestreich WK, Benoit-Bird KJ, Waluk CM, Rueda CA, Cline DE, et al. (2025) Audible changes in marine trophic ecology: Baleen whale song tracks foraging conditions in the eastern North Pacific. PLoS ONE 20(2): e0318624. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318624

Author countries: U.S., Australia

Funding: The work of JPR, WKO, KJBB, CMW, CAR, DEC and YZ was funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, through an annual grant to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. The U.S. National Science Foundation funded installation and maintenance of the MARS cabled observatory through awards 0739828 and 1114794. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0318624 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Audible changes in marine trophic ecology: Baleen whale song tracks foraging conditions in the eastern North Pacific

Article Publication Date

26-Feb-2025