Neural control and its impairment of flexible stability during human bipedal standing and walking

我们最近提出，人类直立站立是稳定的灵活和鲁棒方式的间歇性控制。在本研究中，我们基于姿势控制的数学模型和心理物理实验提供了一些证据来支持我们的假设。我们讨论了神经控制的间歇性丧失可能是帕金森病（PD）患者体位不稳定的原因。此外，我们研究了PD患者的一种步态症状，称为步态冻结，并表明肢体间协调的强烈但嘈杂的神经控制可能是步态冻结的主要原因。

We have proposed recently that human upright standing is stabilized in a flexible and robust manner by an intermittent control. In this study, we provided several evidences that support our hypothesis based on mathematical models of postural control and psychophysical experiments. We discussed possibility that a loss of intermittency in the neural control can be a cause of postural instability in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Moreover, we investigated a gait symptom called freezing of gait in PD patients, and suggested that a forceful but noisy neural control of interlimb coordination can be a main cause of the freezing of gait.