Vestibulospinal control of posture. Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • To better understand the role of the vestibular system in postural coordination, we compared the ability of subjects with complete, bilateral loss of vestibular function and age-matched control subjects to maintain equilibrium and postural orientation during sinusoidal displacements of the support surface at a variety of frequencies. We also examined the ability of visual or somatosensory-light touch information to substitute for missing vestibular information in dynamic postural coordination. The results suggest that vestibular information is used as a gravitational reference frame to prevent slow drift of the trunk in space during complex postural tasks. Furthermore, visual information or somatosensory information from light touch of a finger on a stable reference can significantly substitute for loss of vestibular function.

published proceedings

  • Adv Exp Med Biol

altmetric score

  • 3.45

author list (cited authors)

  • Horak, F. B., Buchanan, J., Creath, R., & Jeka, J.

citation count

  • 25

complete list of authors

  • Horak, Fay B||Buchanan, John||Creath, Robert||Jeka, John

publication date

  • September 2002