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Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease

Postural instability marks a prevalent symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD). It often manifests in increased body sway, which is commonly assessed by tracking the Center of Pressure (CoP). Yet, in terms of postural control, the body’s Center of Mass (CoM), and not CoP is what is regulated in a gravit...

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Autores principales: Student, Justus, Engel, David, Timmermann, Lars, Bremmer, Frank, Waldthaler, Josefine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8924037/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35308620
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.762380
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author Student, Justus
Engel, David
Timmermann, Lars
Bremmer, Frank
Waldthaler, Josefine
author_facet Student, Justus
Engel, David
Timmermann, Lars
Bremmer, Frank
Waldthaler, Josefine
author_sort Student, Justus
collection PubMed
description Postural instability marks a prevalent symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD). It often manifests in increased body sway, which is commonly assessed by tracking the Center of Pressure (CoP). Yet, in terms of postural control, the body’s Center of Mass (CoM), and not CoP is what is regulated in a gravitational field. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of early- to mid-stage PD on these measures of postural control in response to unpredictable visual perturbations. We investigated three cohorts: (i) 18 patients with early to mid-stage PD [Hoehn & Yahr stage (1–3); 1.94 ± 0.70]; (ii) a group of 15 age-matched controls (ECT); and (iii) a group of 12 young healthy adults (YCT). Participants stood on a force plate to track their CoP, while the movement of their entire body was recorded with a video-based motion tracking system to monitor their CoM. A moving room paradigm was applied through a head-mounted virtual reality headset. The stimulus consisted of a virtual tunnel that stretched in the anterior-posterior direction which either remained static or moved back and forth in an unpredictable fashion.We found differences in mean sway amplitude (MSA) and mean velocities of CoP and CoM between the groups under both conditions, with higher MSA of CoP and CoM for PD and higher mean velocities of both variables for PD and ECT when compared with YCT. Visual perturbation increased mean CoP velocity in all groups but did not have effects on mean CoM velocity or MSA. While being significantly lower for the young adults, the net effect of visual perturbation on mean CoP velocity was similar between patients with PD and age-matched controls. There was no effect of the visual perturbation on mean CoM velocity for any of the groups.Our simultaneous assessment of CoP and CoM revealed that postural control is reflected differently in CoM and CoP. As the motion of CoM remained mostly unaffected, all groups successfully counteracted the perturbation and maintained their balance. Higher CoP velocity for PD and ECT revealed increased corrective motion needed to achieve this, which however was similar in both groups. Thus, our results suggest increased effort, expressed in CoP velocity, to be an effect of age rather than disease in earlier stages of PD.
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spelling pubmed-89240372022-03-17 Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease Student, Justus Engel, David Timmermann, Lars Bremmer, Frank Waldthaler, Josefine Front Hum Neurosci Human Neuroscience Postural instability marks a prevalent symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD). It often manifests in increased body sway, which is commonly assessed by tracking the Center of Pressure (CoP). Yet, in terms of postural control, the body’s Center of Mass (CoM), and not CoP is what is regulated in a gravitational field. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of early- to mid-stage PD on these measures of postural control in response to unpredictable visual perturbations. We investigated three cohorts: (i) 18 patients with early to mid-stage PD [Hoehn & Yahr stage (1–3); 1.94 ± 0.70]; (ii) a group of 15 age-matched controls (ECT); and (iii) a group of 12 young healthy adults (YCT). Participants stood on a force plate to track their CoP, while the movement of their entire body was recorded with a video-based motion tracking system to monitor their CoM. A moving room paradigm was applied through a head-mounted virtual reality headset. The stimulus consisted of a virtual tunnel that stretched in the anterior-posterior direction which either remained static or moved back and forth in an unpredictable fashion.We found differences in mean sway amplitude (MSA) and mean velocities of CoP and CoM between the groups under both conditions, with higher MSA of CoP and CoM for PD and higher mean velocities of both variables for PD and ECT when compared with YCT. Visual perturbation increased mean CoP velocity in all groups but did not have effects on mean CoM velocity or MSA. While being significantly lower for the young adults, the net effect of visual perturbation on mean CoP velocity was similar between patients with PD and age-matched controls. There was no effect of the visual perturbation on mean CoM velocity for any of the groups.Our simultaneous assessment of CoP and CoM revealed that postural control is reflected differently in CoM and CoP. As the motion of CoM remained mostly unaffected, all groups successfully counteracted the perturbation and maintained their balance. Higher CoP velocity for PD and ECT revealed increased corrective motion needed to achieve this, which however was similar in both groups. Thus, our results suggest increased effort, expressed in CoP velocity, to be an effect of age rather than disease in earlier stages of PD. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8924037/ /pubmed/35308620 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.762380 Text en Copyright © 2022 Student, Engel, Timmermann, Bremmer and Waldthaler. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Human Neuroscience
Student, Justus
Engel, David
Timmermann, Lars
Bremmer, Frank
Waldthaler, Josefine
Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease
title Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease
title_full Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease
title_fullStr Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease
title_full_unstemmed Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease
title_short Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease
title_sort visual perturbation suggests increased effort to maintain balance in early stages of parkinson’s to be an effect of age rather than disease
topic Human Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8924037/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35308620
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.762380
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