Article

The control of postural sway depends on the dynamic integration of multi-sensory
information in the central nervous system. Augmentation of sensory information,
such as during auditory biofeedback (ABF) of the trunk acceleration, has been
shown to improve postural control. By means of quantitative
electroencephalography (EEG), we examined the basic processes in the brain that
are involved in the perception and cognition of auditory signals used for ABF.
ABF and Fake ABF (FAKE) auditory stimulations were delivered to 10 healthy naive
participants during quiet standing postural tasks, with eyes-open and closed.
Trunk acceleration and 19-channels EEG were recorded at the same time. Advanced,
state-of-the-art EEG analysis and modeling methods were employed to assess the
possibly differential, functional activation, and localization of EEG spectral
features (power in alpha, beta, and gamma bands) between the FAKE and the ABF
conditions, for both the eyes-open and the eyes-closed tasks. Participants gained
advantage by ABF in reducing their postural sway, as measured by a reduction of
the root mean square of trunk acceleration during the ABF compared to the FAKE
condition. Population-wise localization analysis performed on the comparison FAKE
- ABF revealed: (i) a significant decrease of alpha power in the right inferior
parietal cortex for the eyes-open task; (ii) a significant increase of gamma
power in left temporo-parietal areas for the eyes-closed task; (iii) a
significant increase of gamma power in the left temporo-occipital areas in the
eyes-open task. EEG outcomes supported the idea that ABF for postural control
heavily modulates (increases) the cortical activation in healthy participants.
The sites showing the higher ABF-related modulation are among the known cortical
areas associated with multi-sensory, perceptual integration, and sensorimotor
integration, showing a differential activation between the eyes-open and
eyes-closed conditions.
CI - Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS