Abstract
ABSTRACTWhen humans make errors in stepping during walking due to a perturbation, they may adapt their gait as a way to correct for discrepancies between predicted and actual sensory feedback. This study sought to determine if increased contextual interference during acquisition of a novel asymmetric gait pattern would change lower-limb mechanical strategies generalized to different walking contexts. Such knowledge could help to clarify the role of contextual interference in locomotor adaptation, and demonstrate potential use in future gait rehabilitation paradigms. One belt on a split-belt treadmill was driven at a constant velocity while the other was driven at changing velocities according to one of three practice paradigms: serial, random blocked, or random training. Subjects returned to complete one of two different transfer tests. Results indicate that during acquisition, random practice requires unique gait mechanics to adapt to a challenging walking environment. Also, results from one transfer test close to that of the acquisition experience did not seem to demonstrate any contextual interference effect. Finally, random blocked practice resulted in highly unique changes in step length symmetry on a second, more challenging, transfer test. This perhaps indicates that a moderate level of contextual interference causes unique locomotor generalization strategies.
Highlights
Locomotion is a task that humans can adapt rapidly in an environment that demands a change in lower limb mechanical function
Pairwise comparisons indicate that random practice had a significantly greater peak hip extensor moment (HEM) during swing on the constant limb compared to acclimation (Table 1), and on the variable limb compared to acclimation, serial, and random blocked practice (Table 1)
An examination of pairwise comparisons revealed that all groups had a significantly greater HEM during swing on the constant limb compared to acclimation, and all but the random blocked practice group showed the same effect on the variable limb
Summary
Locomotion is a task that humans can adapt rapidly in an environment that demands a change in lower limb mechanical function. While flexibility of gait mechanics may manifest as a permanently different pattern after unilateral lower-limb amputation (Sanderson and Martin, 1997) or hemiparetic stroke (Olney and Richards, 1996), it has been reported to be acutely observable within the first 12-15 strides of a new walking context in. Biomechanical gait adaptations can occur as a response to uneven terrain (Voloshina et al, 2013), or physical constraints such as an active exoskeleton (Banala et al, 2010)
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