Psychophysiological response to acute‐high‐stress combat situations in professional soldiers

Abstract

The study of psychophysiological responses of soldiers in combat situations remains a challenge, especially in melee combat-a close proximity unarmed fight-defined by high unpredictability. Gaining knowledge about psychophysiological changes in high-stress situations is required to optimise training. This study aimed to analyse modifications in autonomic modulation, cortical arousal, heart rate, muscle strength, blood lactate concentration, and rating of perceived exertion of veteran soldiers in a melee combat simulation. Twenty veteran soldiers were analysed before and after a melee combat simulation in accordance with realistic situations that occur in actual operations areas. The simulation consisted of actions performed by a binomial unit in a security and protection mission in an operations area. The melee combat caused an increase in sympathetic modulation, blood lactate concentration, heart rate, muscle strength, a decreased tendency in cortical arousal, and a lower rating of perceived exertion than the organic response measured. An intense fight-flight response was observed in soldiers by the limbic system activation, causing a misinterpretation of perceived exertion. Finally, implications for the design of simulation environments for tactics training in high-stress professions are discussed.

Psychophysiological Stress Response in an Underwater Evacuation Training

“…We found a significant increase in SSP and RPE values between pre-post intervention that did not negatively affect physiological parameters such as FVC, FEV1, PEF, IHS, BOS, and HR, or psychological parameters such as CFFT or ST-M. The low activation of the psychophysiological response of this maneuver was more contrary than other studies in the military population where there was no rest between the different situations that compose the maneuver [5,22,23]. The results obtained evidenced the soldiers' perception of the maneuver as an elicitant and aversive stimuli, which would affect cognitive processes, but the breaks between underwater exercises could lead participants to a physical recuperation between them.…”

“…According to previous studies, this physiological activation is related with the stress produced during the intervention, a result in line with the significant increase in SSP and RPE and the aforementioned increase in the sympathetic nervous system modulation [2,3,12,16,25]. However, despite the significant increase in HR, the values reached were lower than those in other military maneuvers such as asymmetrical, symmetrical, melee, urban, and underground combat, NBQ maneuvers, tactical, HALO and HAHO parachute jumps, air mobile protection team actions, or checkpoint actions [4,5,12,15,16,[21][22][23][26][27][28][29]. This result highlighted the lower cardiovascular requirements of underwater evacuation training, but we have to take in account the bradycardia effect of cold-water exposure, a fact that could interfere in the cardiovascular response, causing it to be lower than that in other military maneuvers [30].…”

“…The dangerous, unpredictable, and unknown nature of military operations makes especially important cognitive processes such as perception, decision-making, processing information, attention, memory, as well as physical skills such as strength, flexibility, and endurance [1][2][3]. The psychophysiological modification observed in different military actions by previous research highlighted the important need to show a deep analysis of psychophysiological parameters involved in stress situations and for the urgent creation of personalized training, that is more realistic and adapted to their requirements [4][5][6][7]. In the context of actual military missions, adding to the chronic exposure to this stressful environment increases the probability of developing mental pathologies such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a syndrome characterized by the development of specific symptoms after direct or indirect exposure to traumatic events [8,9].…”

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].…”

Higher use of techniques studied and performance in melee combat produce a higher psychophysiological stress response

“…Combat in sport, military, or police contexts is identified by a highly stressful situation in which sympathetic nervous system is highly activated producing an increase in different organic systems (Clemente‐Suárez, de la Vega, Robles‐Pérez, Lautenschlaeger, & Fernández‐Lucas, ; Clemente‐Suárez, Diaz‐Manzano, & Robles‐Pérez, ; Clemente‐Suarez, Palomera, & Robles‐Pérez, ; Clemente‐Suarez & Robles‐Perez, ; Clemente‐Suárez & Robles‐Pérez, ; Clemente‐Suárez, Robles‐Pérez, & Fernández‐Lucas, ; Sánchez‐Molina, Robles‐Pérez, & Clemente‐Suárez, ). Specifically, in actual police and military operations predominate asymmetrical confrontations in which there are many uncertainties as urban areas, the presence of civilians, unstructured and undefined battlefield, hide attack, suicide attack, underground operation, being the melee combat presents in most of these interventions (Clemente‐Suárez et al, ; Clemente‐Suárez & Robles‐Pérez, ; Daily Mail, ; Tornero‐Aguilera & Clemente‐Suarez, ).…”