Group-level cortical and muscular connectivity during perturbations to walking and standing balance
Steven M Peterson, Daniel P Ferris, Steven M Peterson, Daniel P Ferris
Abstract
Maintaining balance is a complex process requiring multisensory processing and coordinated muscle activation. Previous studies have indicated that the cortex is directly involved in balance control, but less information is known about cortical flow of signals for balance. We studied source-localized electrocortical effective connectivity dynamics of healthy young subjects (29 subjects: 14 male and 15 female) walking and standing with both visual and physical perturbations to their balance. The goal of this study was to quantify differences in group-level corticomuscular connectivity responses to sensorimotor perturbations during walking and standing. We hypothesized that perturbed visual input during balance would transiently decrease connectivity between occipital and parietal areas due to disruptive visual input during sensory processing. We also hypothesized that physical pull perturbations would increase cortical connections to central sensorimotor areas because of higher sensorimotor integration demands. Our findings show decreased occipito-parietal connectivity during visual rotations and widespread increases in connectivity during pull perturbations focused on central areas, as expected. We also found evidence for communication from cortex to muscles during perturbed balance. These results show that sensorimotor perturbations to balance alter cortical networks and can be quantified using effective connectivity estimation.
Keywords: Balance perturbation; Effective connectivity; Electroencephalography; Independent component analysis; Virtual reality.
Conflict of interest statement
Declarations of interest: none
Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Figures
![Figure 1.. Sketch of the two perturbation…](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0001.jpg)
![Figure 2.. Schematic of processing pipeline.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0002.jpg)
![Figure 3.. Cortical cluster locations.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0003.jpg)
![Figure 4.. Cortical event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs)…](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0004.jpg)
![Figure 5.. Cortical event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs)…](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0005.jpg)
![Figure 6.. Muscular event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs)…](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0006.jpg)
![Figure 7:. Baseline connectivity results.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0007.jpg)
Figure 8:. Perturbation-evoked cortical connectivity.
Chord diagrams…
Figure 8:. Perturbation-evoked cortical connectivity.
Chord diagrams show average cortico-cortical connection strengths during the 1…
Figure 9:. Perturbation-evoked intermuscular connectivity.
Chord diagrams…
Figure 9:. Perturbation-evoked intermuscular connectivity.
Chord diagrams show average intermuscular connection strengths during the 1…
Figure 10:. Event-related corticomuscular connectivity.
Chord diagrams…
Figure 10:. Event-related corticomuscular connectivity.
Chord diagrams show average corticomuscular connection strengths during the 1…
![Figure 8:. Perturbation-evoked cortical connectivity.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0008.jpg)
![Figure 9:. Perturbation-evoked intermuscular connectivity.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0009.jpg)
![Figure 10:. Event-related corticomuscular connectivity.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6592721/bin/nihms-1530105-f0010.jpg)
Source: PubMed