Gait control – visuo-motor interactions and plasticity in glaucoma

青光眼的步态控制 â 视觉运动相互作用和可塑性

• 批准号: 423926179
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Michael Hoffmann
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Bereich Sportwissenschaft (SPW)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/423926179?language=en
• 关键词: Gait; control; visuo; motor; interactions

Unsteady gait is a cause of increased incidences of falls and reduced mobility in the elderly, and is thus a source of a significant reduction in quality of life. A critical factor of gait control constitutes, apart from the motor-skills themselves, the interplay of the motoric system with both sensory and cognitive processes. This renders elderly with sensory impairment particularly prone to falls. Important examples are persons with glaucoma, a prevalent disease causing substantial visual impairment. An understanding of the role of visual, cognitive and visuo-cognitive functionality and their interactions during gait control is expected to pave the way for efficient interventional instruments to improve gait control in glaucoma and beyond. This prompts the question, whether multimodal movement-related interventions, i.e., those addressing motor-, sensory, and cognitive functions in a combined manner, are superior to unimodal movement-related interventions in their effect on gait control.Our project aims to understand the interplay of motor-, visual, cognitive and visuo-cognitive function during gait control and its impact on the development of interventional instruments. It addresses glaucoma as an important and relevant model for risk groups with sensory impairment. In a multidisciplinary approach the project combines expertise in physical-activity and movement sciences, ophthalmology and neurosciences to address the following steps: (i) Development of research tools to identify interactions of visual function, cognition, visuo-cognition and gait control for both laboratory settings and, importantly, everyday like conditions. (ii) Application of these tools in ≥50 participants with glaucoma and matched controls to uncover and understand the relative importance of visual function, cognition, and visuo-cognition for gait control. (iii) Comparison of two interventional concepts, a unimodal and a multimodal movement-related intervention, in a longitudinal design in two glaucoma intervention groups, comprising a total of ≥50 participants. Behavioural readouts of the intervention effects will be combined with physiological correlates from resting state fMRI, to uncover mechanisms of neuro-plasticity and their correlation with behavioural measures. This will target changes in functional connectivity between brain regions representing motor skills, vision and cognition.We expect this investigation of the interaction of cognition, vision, and visuo-cognition in gait control in glaucoma and matched controls to considerably increase our understanding of gait control and to guide the identification of efficient interventional concepts for prevention and rehabilitation in general.

步态不稳是老年人跌倒发生率增加和行动不便的原因之一，因此也是生活质量显著下降的原因之一。步态控制的一个关键因素，除了运动技能本身之外，还包括运动系统与感觉和认知过程的相互作用。这使得感觉受损的老年人特别容易摔倒。重要的例子是青光眼，这是一种会导致严重视力障碍的流行疾病。了解视觉、认知和视觉-认知功能在步态控制中的作用及其相互作用有望为有效的介入工具改善青光眼及以后的步态控制铺平道路。这就引出了这样一个问题：在步态控制方面，多模式运动相关干预措施，即综合处理运动、感觉和认知功能的干预措施，是否优于单模式运动相关干预措施。我们的项目旨在了解运动、视觉、认知和视觉认知功能在步态控制过程中的相互作用及其对干预工具的发展的影响。它解决了青光眼作为一个重要的和相关的模型，为有感觉障碍的风险群体。在一个多学科的方法中，该项目结合了身体活动和运动科学、眼科学和神经科学的专业知识，以解决以下步骤：(I)开发研究工具，以确定实验室环境以及重要的日常类似条件下视觉功能、认知、视觉认知和步态控制的相互作用。(Ii)在≥50名患有青光眼的参与者和匹配的对照组中应用这些工具，以揭示和了解视觉功能、认知和视觉认知对步态控制的相对重要性。(Iii)在两个包括≥50名参与者的青光眼干预组中，采用纵向设计比较两种干预概念，即单峰运动相关干预和多峰运动相关干预。干预效果的行为读数将与来自静息状态fMRI的生理相关性结合起来，以揭示神经可塑性的机制及其与行为测量的相关性。这将针对代表运动技能、视觉和认知的大脑区域之间的功能连接的变化。我们期待这项关于青光眼和匹配对照组步态控制中认知、视觉和视觉认知相互作用的研究将显著增加我们对步态控制的理解，并指导识别有效的干预概念，用于预防和康复。