Dataset Information

Neural Control of Balance During Walking.

ABSTRACT: Neural control of standing balance has been extensively studied. However, most falls occur during walking rather than standing, and findings from standing balance research do not necessarily carry over to walking. This is primarily due to the constraints of the gait cycle: Body configuration changes dramatically over the gait cycle, necessitating different responses as this configuration changes. Notably, certain responses can only be initiated at specific points in the gait cycle, leading to onset times ranging from 350 to 600 ms, much longer than what is observed during standing (50-200 ms). Here, we investigated the neural control of upright balance during walking. Specifically, how the brain transforms sensory information related to upright balance into corrective motor responses. We used visual disturbances of 20 healthy young subjects walking in a virtual reality cave to induce the perception of a fall to the side and analyzed the muscular responses, changes in ground reaction forces and body kinematics. Our results showed changes in swing leg foot placement and stance leg ankle roll that accelerate the body in the direction opposite of the visually induced fall stimulus, consistent with previous results. Surprisingly, ankle musculature activity changed rapidly in response to the stimulus, suggesting the presence of a direct reflexive pathway from the visual system to the spinal cord, similar to the vestibulospinal pathway. We also observed systematic modulation of the ankle push-off, indicating the discovery of a previously unobserved balance mechanism. Such modulation has implications not only for balance but plays a role in modulation of step width and length as well as cadence. These results indicated a temporally-coordinated series of balance responses over the gait cycle that insures flexible control of upright balance during walking.

SUBMITTER: Reimann H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6146212 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Neural Control of Balance During Walking.

Reimann Hendrik H Fettrow Tyler T Thompson Elizabeth D ED Jeka John J JJ

Frontiers in physiology 20180913

Neural control of standing balance has been extensively studied. However, most falls occur during walking rather than standing, and findings from standing balance research do not necessarily carry over to walking. This is primarily due to the constraints of the gait cycle: Body configuration changes dramatically over the gait cycle, necessitating different responses as this configuration changes. Notably, certain responses can only be initiated at specific points in the gait cycle, leading to on ...[more]

PMID: 30271354

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Project description:INTRODUCTION:Altered trunk shape and body alignment in Lenke 1 thoracic adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) may affect the body's balance control during activities. The current study aimed to identify the effects of Lenke 1 thoracic AIS on the balance control during level walking in terms of the inclination angles (IA) of the center of mass (COM) relative to the center of pressure (COP), the rate of change of IA (RCIA), and the jerk index of IA. The association between the Cobb angle, IA and RCIA was also evaluated. MATERIALS AND METHODS:Sixteen adolescents with AIS (age: 14.0±1.8 years, height: 154.8±4.7 cm, mass: 42.0±7.5 kg) and sixteen healthy controls (age: 14.4±2.0 years, height: 158.4±6.2 cm, body mass: 48.6±8.9 kg) performed level walking in a gait laboratory. The kinematic and ground reaction force data were measured for both concave-side and convex-side limb cycles, and used to calculate the IA and RCIA, the jerk index of IA, and the temporal-spatial parameters. Correlations between the Cobb angle, IA and RCIA were quantified using Pearson's correlation coefficients (r). RESULTS:The patients showed less smooth COM-COP motion with increased jerk index of IA in the sagittal plane during single limb support (SLS) of the concave-limb (p = 0.05) and in the frontal plane during double limb support (DLS) (p < 0.05). The patients also showed significantly increased posterior RCIA on both the concave and convex side during initial (p = 0.04, p = 0.03) and terminal (p = 0.04, p = 0.03) DLS when compared to healthy controls. In the frontal plane, the patients walking on the concave-side limb showed decreased IA over SLS (p = 0.01), and at contralateral toe-off (p<0.01) and contralateral heel-strike (p = 0.02), but increased mean IA magnitude over terminal DLS (p = 0.01). The frontal IA at contralateral toe-off and SLS for AIS-A showed a moderate to strong correlation with Cobb angles (r = -0.46 and -0.61), and the sagittal RCIA over the initial DLS for AIS-A also showed a significant, strong correlation with Cobb angles (r = -0.50). CONCLUSIONS:The patients with Lenke 1 thoracic scoliosis in the current study showed altered and jerkier COM-COP control during level walking when compared to healthy controls. During DLS, the patients increased the posterior RCIA in the sagittal plane with increased IA jerk index in the frontal plane for both the concave- and the convex-side limb, indicating their difficulty in maintaining a smooth transfer of the body weight. During SLS of the concave-side limb, the patients adopted a conservative COM-COP control strategy, as indicated by a decreased IA in the frontal plane, but showed a jerky COM-COP control in the sagittal plane. The COM-COP control of the patients was associated with the severity of the spinal deformity. The current results suggest that this patient group should be monitored for signs of an increased risk of loss of balance during weight transfer on the concave-side limb.

Project description:People post-stroke have an increased risk of falls compared to neurotypical individuals, partly resulting from an inability to generate appropriate reactions to restore balance. However, few studies investigated the effect of paretic deficits on the mechanics of reactive control strategies following forward losses of balance during walking. Here, we characterized the biomechanical consequences of reactive control strategies following perturbations induced by the treadmill belt accelerations. Thirty-eight post-stroke participants and thirteen age-matched and speed-matched neurotypical participants walked on a dual-belt treadmill while receiving perturbations that induced a forward loss of balance. We computed whole-body angular momentum and angular impulse using segment kinematics and reaction forces to quantify the effect of impulse generation by both the leading and trailing limbs in response to perturbations in the sagittal plane. We found that perturbations to the paretic limb led to larger increases in forward angular momentum during the perturbation step than perturbations to the non-paretic limb or to neurotypical individuals. To recover from the forward loss of balance, neurotypical individuals coordinated reaction forces generated by both legs to decrease the forward angular impulse relative to the pre-perturbation step. They first decreased the forward pitch angular impulse during the perturbation step. Then, during the first recovery step, they increased the backward angular impulse by the leading limb and decreased the forward angular impulse by the trailing limb. In contrast to neurotypical participants, people post-stroke did not reduce the forward angular impulse generated by the stance limb during the perturbed step. They also did not increase leading limb angular impulse or decrease the forward trailing limb angular impulse using their paretic limb during the first recovery step. Lastly, post-stroke individuals who scored poorer on clinical assessments of balance and had greater motor impairment made less use of the paretic limb to reduce forward momentum. Overall, these results suggest that paretic deficits limit the ability to recover from forward loss of balance. Future perturbation-based balance training targeting reactive stepping response in stroke populations may benefit from improving the ability to modulate paretic ground reaction forces to better control whole-body dynamics.

Project description:Principles from human-human physical interaction may be necessary to design more intuitive and seamless robotic devices to aid human movement. Previous studies have shown that light touch can aid balance and that haptic communication can improve performance of physical tasks, but the effects of touch between two humans on walking balance has not been previously characterized. This study examines physical interaction between two persons when one person aids another in performing a beam-walking task. 12 pairs of healthy young adults held a force sensor with one hand while one person walked on a narrow balance beam (2 cm wide x 3.7 m long) and the other person walked overground by their side. We compare balance performance during partnered vs. solo beam-walking to examine the effects of haptic interaction, and we compare hand interaction mechanics during partnered beam-walking vs. overground walking to examine how the interaction aided balance. While holding the hand of a partner, participants were able to walk further on the beam without falling, reduce lateral sway, and decrease angular momentum in the frontal plane. We measured small hand force magnitudes (mean of 2.2 N laterally and 3.4 N vertically) that created opposing torque components about the beam axis and calculated the interaction torque, the overlapping opposing torque that does not contribute to motion of the beam-walker's body. We found higher interaction torque magnitudes during partnered beam-walking vs. partnered overground walking, and correlation between interaction torque magnitude and reductions in lateral sway. To gain insight into feasible controller designs to emulate human-human physical interactions for aiding walking balance, we modeled the relationship between each torque component and motion of the beam-walker's body as a mass-spring-damper system. Our model results show opposite types of mechanical elements (active vs. passive) for the two torque components. Our results demonstrate that hand interactions aid balance during partnered beam-walking by creating opposing torques that primarily serve haptic communication, and our model of the torques suggest control parameters for implementing human-human balance aid in human-robot interactions.

Dataset Information

Neural Control of Balance During Walking.

Publications

Neural Control of Balance During Walking.

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