Sensorimotor interaction for stability: influence of sensory information on cortical control of balance

这项研究的目的是全面评估人类如何利用感官来帮助控制平衡。平衡控制是为突然失去稳定性做好准备并做出反应的能力，比如滑倒或绊倒。准备可以让早期的肌肉活动，以减少发生时失去平衡的大小。平衡反应确保了肌肉活动的大小与发生平衡损失时的大小相匹配。有效地为失去平衡做好准备并做出反应对于完成简单的任务如散步或工作或娱乐等更复杂的活动是很重要的，但平衡的基本感觉运动控制仍然没有被完全理解。我们的感官使我们能够从环境中检索有助于保持平衡的信息。根据以前的经验，我们可以利用这些信息来预测如何最好地激活我们的肌肉，以防止失去平衡。因为这些信息，我们可以在正确的时间打开我们的肌肉，产生足够的力量来减少我们失去平衡时的不稳定程度。来自我们感官的信息还可以告诉我们，我们失去平衡的程度有多大，这样我们就可以迅速产生肌肉力量来阻止跌倒。有趣的是，我们的肌肉在不同的情况下会有不同的反应，比如坐着和站着。这意味着，除了来自我们感官的信息外，我们还可以根据我们对环境的感知和当我们失去平衡时所执行的任务来改变我们的平衡能力。我们可以假设，人脑正在以某种方式利用关于环境、任务和我们的感官的信息来改善平衡。事实上，在平衡任务中进行的大脑记录显示了大脑在失去平衡之前、期间和之后的活跃程度。然而，我们还不知道，来自我们感官的信息的变化如何改变这一大脑活动。目前的提议包括四个目标来解决这一知识鸿沟：目标1：确定来自我们感官的信息是如何在与平衡相关的大脑活动中呈现的。目的2：确定感觉信息和与平衡相关的大脑活动之间关系的变化如何影响肌肉的平衡功能。目标3：描述感官信息在我们如何协调身体左右两侧的平衡活动中的作用。目标4：了解当我们的注意力集中在其他事情上时，我们是如何利用感官信息来保持平衡的。平衡控制被视为人类的一项基本能力。良好的平衡控制使我们能够处理最简单的日常任务的挑战，并使我们能够更好地在我们的环境中移动。这项研究将帮助我们理解我们如何使用来自我们的感官、环境和帮助控制平衡的任务的信息，这是日常功能的关键。

The goal of this research is to comprehensively evaluate how humans use their senses to help control their balance. Balance control is the ability to prepare for and react to a sudden loss of stability like a slip or a trip. Preparation allows early muscle activity to reduce the size of balance loss when it happens. Balance reactions ensure that muscle activity is as large as needed to match the size of balance loss when it happens. Effectively preparing for and reacting to a loss of balance is important for doing simple tasks like walking or more complex activities like work or play, yet the fundamental sensorimotor control of balance is still not fully understood. Our senses allow us to retrieve information from the environment that helps to maintain balance. Based on previous experience, we can use this information to make predictions about how to best activate our muscles to stop from losing balance. Because of this information, we can turn on our muscles at the right time and generate enough force to reduce how unstable we are if we lose our balance. The information from our senses can also tell us about how large our loss of balance is so we can quickly generate muscle force to stop from falling. Interestingly, our muscle responses will be different in different situations like sitting versus standing. This means we can change our balance abilities based on our perception of the environment and the task we are performing when we lose balance, in addition to the information from our senses. We can assume that the human brain is somehow using information about the environment, the task, and our senses to improve balance. In fact, brain recordings conducted during balance tasks show just how active the brain is before, during, and after a loss of balance. We don't yet know, however, how the changes in the information from our senses alter this brain activity. The current proposal includes four aims to address this knowledge gap: Aim 1: identify how information from our senses is represented in balance-related brain activity. Aim 2: determine how changes in the relationship between sensory information and balance-related brain activity impacts muscle function for balance. Aim 3: characterize the role of sensory information in how we coordinate balance activity between the left and right sides of our body. Aim 4: understand how we use information from our senses for balance if our attention is focused on something else. Balance control is viewed as a basic human ability. Good balance control allows us to handle the challenges of the simplest of daily tasks and makes us better able to move in our environment. This research will help us understand how we use information from our senses, the environment, and the task to help control balance, something crucial for everyday function.