This study seeks to gain understanding of the human postural system and its ability to adapt to external visual perturbations. The adaptation, habituation and saturation characteristics of postural sway in healthy individuals standing on different support surfaces will be studied as will as the same characteristics in patients with diseases that impair balance such as vestibular deficits and cerebellar deficits. The focus will be on the time-varying aspects of the postural response to visual perturbations. Preliminary data indicate that the ability to adapt to perturbations can be used to distinguish between classes of subjects. The primary tool for data collection is a center of pressure (COP) platform type with a moving visual field device attached. Data processing methods such as time-frequency analysis are employed to allow the calculation of adaptation (per-stimulus response decline within a trial), habituation (a decrease in response to stimuli across repeated trials) and saturation (compression of the response to increasing stimulus) statistics with high confidence. An objective of the research is to improve the evaluation and rehabilitation of individuals with balance disorders.
| Mahboobin, Arash; Loughlin, Patrick J; Redfern, Mark S et al. (2005) Sensory re-weighting in human postural control during moving-scene perturbations. Exp Brain Res 167:260-7 |
| Peterka, Robert J; Loughlin, Patrick J (2004) Dynamic regulation of sensorimotor integration in human postural control. J Neurophysiol 91:410-23 |
| Sparto, Patrick J; Jasko, Jeffrey G; Loughlin, Patrick J (2004) Detecting postural responses to sinusoidal sensory inputs: a statistical approach. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng 12:360-6 |
| Loughlin, Patrick J; Redfern, Mark S; Furman, Joseph M (2003) Nonstationarities of postural sway. IEEE Eng Med Biol Mag 22:69-75 |
