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Locomotor adaptation to visual cueing of impending mechanical perturbations during treadmill walking

Jinfeng Li

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Central Florida
jinfeng@knights.ucf.edu

Helen J. Huang

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Disability, Aging, and Technology (DAT) cluster
University of Central Florida
hjhuang@ucf.edu

Purpose: To determine whether visual cueing of the magnitudes of impending mechanical perturbations facilitates adaptation during perturbed walking.

Hypothesis: Visual cueing of impending mechanical perturbations will facilitate adaptation (specifically, result in larger margins of stability compared to no cueing).

Background

Brief decelerate belt speeds during every right midstance can perturb walking and balance [1].

Subjects initially decreased anterior-posterior margin of stability when first experiencing the perturbations but adapted back towards baseline [1].

Visual cueing of the perturbations may facilitate an anticipatory strategy and increase adaptation [2].

what is margin of stability?

experimental protocol

visual cueing seems to be beneficial for large perturbations but not for small perturbations

For both subjects, visual cueing increased margin of stability compared to no cueing for the large perturbation but not for the small perturbation.

1) Both subjects reduced margin of stability from pre to early perturbed for all perturbations except the no cue small perturbation, suggesting that the belt decelerations perturbed baseline walking and balance. 2) The two subjects gradually increased margin of stability from early to late perturbed back towards baseline (pre), suggesting that subjects seemed to be adapting to all perturbations. 3) The magnitude of the decrement in margin of stability was greater with cueing compared to no cueing for the small perturbation.  4) For both subjects, the reduction in margin of stability from pre to early perturbed for the large perturbation was larger compared to the small perturbation, regardless of visual cueing, which indicates that larger perturbations were more challenging.

thoughts thus far...

These results suggest that visual cueing does not necessarily improve adaptation to impending mechanical perturbations during gait.

Next steps: collect more subjects to determine whether this behavior occurs in more subjects and in older adults.

references

[1] Li J and Huang HJ. Dynamic Walking 2019: 47.
[2] Wu M et al. PLoS One. 2015;10: e0132707.

acknowledgements

Supported by NIH R01AG054621 and a University of Central Florida In-House grant.