Abstract

CLEMENTE-SUAREZ, Vicente J.  and  ROBLES-PEREZ, José J.. Psycho-physiological response of soldiers in urban combat. Anal. Psicol. [online]. 2013, vol.29, n.2, pp.598-603. ISSN 1695-2294.  https://dx.doi.org/10.6018/analesps.29.2.150691.

Current armed conflicts are asymmetrical and are developed m urban areas. These new requirements have not been studied for current literature. The aim of this study was to analyse changes in cortical arousal, blood lactate, muscle strength, autonomic modulation and rate of perceived exertion in a simulated urban combat. We analyzed 20 soldiers before and after an urban combat simulation. The results showed how urban combat produced high sympathetic nervous system activation, increasing the muscle strength, heart rate and blood lactate concentration of the soldiers. Despite this effort, rate of perceived exertion were not consistent with the physiological response that soldiers presented, the rate of perceived exertion was lower than the physiological response evaluated. Furthermore, the information processing and cortical arousal decreased after the urban combat simulation. These results have showed the psycho-physiological response of soldiers in combat, helping to better understanding and enabling an improvement of current training methods of soldiers.

Keywords : Combat; cortical arousal; stress; strength; sympathetic nervous system; heart rate.

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