Learning to stand with unexpected sensorimotor delays
- University of Otago, New Zealand
- Erasmus University Medical Centre, Netherlands
- University of Calgary, Canada
- University of New Brunswick, Canada
- University of British Columbia, Canada
Abstract
Human standing balance relies on self-motion estimates that are used by the nervous system to detect unexpected movements and enable corrective responses and adaptations in control. These estimates must accommodate for inherent delays in sensory and motor pathways. Here, we used a robotic system to simulate human standing in the anteroposterior direction about the ankles and impose sensorimotor delays into the control of balance. Imposed delays destabilized standing, but through training, participants adapted and re-learned to balance with the delays. Before training, imposed delays attenuated vestibular contributions to balance and triggered perceptions of unexpected standing motion, suggesting increased uncertainty in the internal self-motion estimates. After training, vestibular contributions partially returned to baseline levels and larger delays were needed to evoke perceptions of unexpected standing motion. Through learning, the nervous system accommodates balance sensorimotor delays by causally linking whole-body sensory feedback (initially interpreted as imposed motion) to self-generated balance motor commands.
Data availability
We have created a Dataverse link for the source files needed to generate the group result figures. This can be found at https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/IKX9ML. Source files will be published and publicly available upon acceptance for publication.
-
Data and code for Learning to stand with unexpected sensorimotor delaysScholars Portal Dataverse, doi:10.5683/SP2/IKX9ML.
Article and author information
Author details
Jean-Sebastien Blouin
Funding
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Graduate Student Scholarship)
- Brandon G Rasman
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO #016. Veni. 188.049)
- Patrick A Forbes
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2020-05438)
- Jean-Sebastien Blouin
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Noah J Cowan, Johns Hopkins University, United States
Ethics
Human subjects: The experimental protocol was verbally explained before the experiment and written informed consent was obtained. The experiments were approved by the University of British Columbia Human Research Ethics Committee and conformed to the Declaration of Helsinki, with the exception of registration to a database.
Version history
- Received: November 22, 2020
- Accepted: August 4, 2021
- Accepted Manuscript published: August 10, 2021 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: September 29, 2021 (version 2)
- Version of Record updated: October 5, 2021 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2021, Rasman et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 1,280
- views
-
- 217
- downloads
-
- 10
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Learning to stand with unexpected sensorimotor delays
eLife 10:e65085.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65085
Further reading
-
- Neuroscience
Cortical folding is an important feature of primate brains that plays a crucial role in various cognitive and behavioral processes. Extensive research has revealed both similarities and differences in folding morphology and brain function among primates including macaque and human. The folding morphology is the basis of brain function, making cross-species studies on folding morphology important for understanding brain function and species evolution. However, prior studies on cross-species folding morphology mainly focused on partial regions of the cortex instead of the entire brain. Previously, our research defined a whole-brain landmark based on folding morphology: the gyral peak. It was found to exist stably across individuals and ages in both human and macaque brains. Shared and unique gyral peaks in human and macaque are identified in this study, and their similarities and differences in spatial distribution, anatomical morphology, and functional connectivity were also dicussed.
-
- Neuroscience
Complex skills like speech and dance are composed of ordered sequences of simpler elements, but the neuronal basis for the syntactic ordering of actions is poorly understood. Birdsong is a learned vocal behavior composed of syntactically ordered syllables, controlled in part by the songbird premotor nucleus HVC (proper name). Here, we test whether one of HVC’s recurrent inputs, mMAN (medial magnocellular nucleus of the anterior nidopallium), contributes to sequencing in adult male Bengalese finches (Lonchura striata domestica). Bengalese finch song includes several patterns: (1) chunks, comprising stereotyped syllable sequences; (2) branch points, where a given syllable can be followed probabilistically by multiple syllables; and (3) repeat phrases, where individual syllables are repeated variable numbers of times. We found that following bilateral lesions of mMAN, acoustic structure of syllables remained largely intact, but sequencing became more variable, as evidenced by ‘breaks’ in previously stereotyped chunks, increased uncertainty at branch points, and increased variability in repeat numbers. Our results show that mMAN contributes to the variable sequencing of vocal elements in Bengalese finch song and demonstrate the influence of recurrent projections to HVC. Furthermore, they highlight the utility of species with complex syntax in investigating neuronal control of ordered sequences.
