Article

During multisensory integration, it has been proposed that the central nervous
system (CNS) assigns a weight to each sensory input through a process called
sensory reweighting.
The outcome of this integration process is a single percept
that is used to control posture. The main objective of this study was to
determine the interaction between ankle proprioception and vision during sensory
integration when the two inputs provide conflicting sensory information
pertaining to direction of body sway. Sensory conflict was created by using
bilateral Achilles tendon vibration and contracting visual flow and produced body
sway in opposing directions when applied independently. Vibration was applied at
80Hz, 1mm amplitude and the visual flow consisted of a virtual reality scene with
concentric rings retreating at 3m/s. Body sway elicited by the stimuli
individually and in combination was evaluated in 10 healthy young adults by
analyzing center of pressure (COP) displacement and lower limb kinematics. The
magnitude of COP displacement produced when vibration and visual flow were
combined was found to be lesser than the algebraic sum of COP displacement
produced by the stimuli when applied individually. This suggests that
multisensory integration is not merely an algebraic summation of individual cues.
Instead the observed response might be a result of a weighted combination process
with the weight attached to each cue being directly proportional to the relative
reliability of the cues.
The moderating effect of visual flow on postural
instability produced by vibration points to the potential use of controlled
visual flow for balance training.
CI - Copyright (c) 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Langue : ANGLAIS