Learning to stand with unexpected sensorimotor delays

  1. Brandon G Rasman
  2. Patrick A Forbes
  3. Ryan M Peters
  4. Oscar Ortiz
  5. Ian Franks
  6. J Timothy Inglis
  7. Romeo Chua
  8. Jean-Sebastien Blouin  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of Otago, New Zealand
  2. Erasmus University Medical Centre, Netherlands
  3. University of Calgary, Canada
  4. University of New Brunswick, Canada
  5. 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.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Brandon G Rasman

    School of Physical Education, Sport, and Exercise Sciences, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8031-8320
  2. Patrick A Forbes

    Department of Neuroscience, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0230-9971
  3. Ryan M Peters

    Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Oscar Ortiz

    Faculty of Kinesiology, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Ian Franks

    School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. J Timothy Inglis

    School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Romeo Chua

    School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Jean-Sebastien Blouin

    School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
    For correspondence
    jsblouin@mail.ubc.ca
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0046-4051

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.

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.

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.

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  1. Brandon G Rasman
  2. Patrick A Forbes
  3. Ryan M Peters
  4. Oscar Ortiz
  5. Ian Franks
  6. J Timothy Inglis
  7. Romeo Chua
  8. Jean-Sebastien Blouin
(2021)
Learning to stand with unexpected sensorimotor delays
eLife 10:e65085.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65085

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https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65085