Abstract
ABSTRACTThe capacity to recover after a perturbation is a well-known intrinsic property of physiological systems, including the locomotor system, and can be termed ‘resilience’. Despite an abundance of metrics proposed to measure the complex dynamics of bipedal locomotion, analytical tools for quantifying resilience are lacking. Here, we introduce a novel method to directly quantify resilience to perturbations during locomotion. We examined the extent to which synchronizing stepping with two different temporal structured auditory stimuli (periodic and 1/f structure) during walking modulates resilience to a large unexpected perturbation. Recovery time after perturbation was calculated from the horizontal velocity of the body's center of mass. Our results indicate that synchronizing stepping with a 1/f stimulus elicited greater resilience to mechanical perturbations during walking compared with the periodic stimulus (3.3 s faster). Our proposed method may help to gain a comprehensive understanding of movement recovery behavior of humans and other animals in their ecological contexts.
Highlights
Humans generally exhibit quick and accurate movement recovery to unexpected perturbations to facilitate stable walking while traversing real-world environments
Answering the key question ‘How long does it take to recover movement after a perturbation?’ seems to be essential in order to provide an unambiguous and intuitive indicator of adaptive capacity of an individual. We propose that this quantity be termed ‘resilience’ to highlight its significance within locomotor systems
We investigated the relationship between the structure of movement variability and resilience by having our participants synchronize their walking patterns to one of two auditory stimuli – (1) a nonvariable periodic stimulus or (2) a variable stimulus with 1/f structure – and observed their time to recover pre-perturbation steady-state movement patterns
Summary
Humans generally exhibit quick and accurate movement recovery to unexpected perturbations to facilitate stable walking (i.e. fall avoidance) while traversing real-world environments. The mechanics and control underlying recovery of movement and stable locomotion in humans are only starting to be unraveled. Perturbation experiments on model locomotor systems (e.g. birds: Daley, 2018; Daley and Biewener, 2006; dogs: Wilshin et al, 2017; and human runners: Grimmer et al, 2008; Seethapathi and Srinivasan, 2019; Seyfarth et al, 2003) have further advanced our understanding, but have revealed additional factors to consider. The assessment of movement recovery might depend on the organization level of the body (e.g. whole-body, joint or limb, and muscle level) at which recovery is estimated. Corrective responses at the joint level can occur with minimal effect on the whole-body center of mass (COM) trajectory (Chang et al, 2009).
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