BACKGROUND The cerebellum integrates proprioceptive, vestibular and visual signals for postural control. Cerebellar patients with downbeat nystagmus (DBN) complain of unsteadiness of stance and gait as well as blurred vision and oscillopsia. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to elucidate the differential role of visual input, gaze eccentricity, vestibular and proprioceptive input on the po...

BACKGROUND This study investigated the effects of obesity on attentional resources allocated to postural control in seating and unipedal standing. METHODS Ten non obese adults (BMI = 22.4±1.3, age = 42.4±15.1) and 10 obese adult patients (BMI = 35.2±2.8, age = 46.2±19.6) maintained postural stability on a force platform in two postural tasks (seated and unipedal). The two postural tasks were ...

Background: Postural control requires complex processing of peripheral sensory inputs from the visual, somatosensory and vestibular systems. Motion sensitivity and decreased postural control are influenced by visual-vestibular conflicts. The purpose of this study was to measure the difference between the postural control of healthy adults with and without history of sub-clinical chronic motion ...

Background: Poor balance performance and impaired postural control have been frequently reported in patients with low back pain. However, postural control is rarely monitored during the course of treatment even though poor postural control may contribute to chronicity and recurrence of symptoms. Therefore, the present study aimed at investigating the effect of a nonextensible lumbosacral orthos...

The present paper reviews the development of postural adjustments during infancy. In the control of posture, two functional levels can be distinguished. The basic level deals with the generation of direction-specific adjustments, meaning that dorsal muscles are primarily activated when the body sways forward, whereas ventral muscles are primarily activated when the body sways backward. The seco...

Postural control is a natural behavior that requires the spatial and temporal coordination of multiple muscles. Complex muscle activation patterns characterizing postural responses suggest the need for independent muscle control. However, our previous work shows that postural responses in cats can be robustly reproduced by the activation of a few muscle synergies. We now investigate whether a s...

Postural stability in standing balance results from the mechanics of body dynamics as well as active neural feedback control processes. Even when an animal or human has multiple legs on the ground, active neural regulation of balance is required. When the postural configuration, or stance, changes, such as when the feet are placed further apart, the mechanical stability of the organism changes,...

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of computerized postural control training using whole body vibration on lower limb muscle activity and cerebral cortical activation in acute stroke patients. [Subjects and Methods] Thirty stroke patients participated and were divided into groups of 10, a group of the computerized postural control training using whole body vibration (...

Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is associated with reduced postural control, which may put those with knee OA at greater risk of falling. Adults with knee OA have reduced knee proprioception (joint position sense), suggesting reduced proprioception sensation about the knee [1]. Proprioceptive acuity is a key component of postural control. Stochastic resonance (SR) stimulation has been theorized as a m...

Maintaining a multi-jointed inverted pendulum in vertical position is an extremely challenging engineering problem. However, most healthy individuals not only can stand upright with ease, they can maintain stability during motion and under some perturbations. Many studies have shown that postural control involves very complicated interactions between many subsystems – i.e. sensory, neural, moto...