Gait adaptability training is affected by visual dependency

• Published in: Experimental brain research 2012-07, Vol.220 (1), p.1-9
• Main Authors: Brady, Rachel A., Peters, Brian T., Batson, Crystal D., Ploutz-Snyder, Robert, Mulavara, Ajitkumar P., Bloomberg, Jacob J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptability; Adaptation; Adaptation, Physiological - physiology; Adult; Anxiety; Astronauts; Biological and medical sciences; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain; Brain research; Cognitive ability; Cues; Exercise Test; Eye and associated structures. Visual pathways and centers. Vision; Female; Functional Laterality; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gait; Gait - physiology; Heart Rate; Humans; Interaction analysis; Male; Multimodal perception; Neurology; Neurosciences; Perception; Physiological aspects; Postural Balance - physiology; Posture; Practice (Psychology); Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; Reaction Time - physiology; Research Article; Sensorimotor integration; sensorimotor system; Time Factors; Torso - physiology; Training; Training (programs); Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; Vision; Walking; Work load; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0014-4819; 1432-1106
• DOI: 10.1007/s00221-012-3109-5

As part of a larger gait adaptability training study, we designed a program that presented combinations of visual flow and support-surface manipulations to investigate the response of healthy adults to walking on a treadmill in novel discordant sensorimotor conditions. A visual dependence score was determined for each subject, and this score was used to explore how visual dependency was linked to locomotor performance (1) during three training sessions and (2) in a new discordant environment presented at the conclusion of training. Performance measures included reaction time (RT), stride frequency (SF), and heart rate (HR), which respectively served as indicators of cognitive load, postural stability, and anxiety. We hypothesized that training would affect performance measures differently for highly visually dependent individuals than for their less visually dependent counterparts. A seemingly unrelated estimation analysis of RT, SF, and HR revealed a significant omnibus interaction of visual dependency by session ( p