What were you thinking?

We were just talking about cognitive tasking and arm swing, and have talked about cognition altering gait. Here is a another paper on cognition (or inattention in this case) boding not so well

ABSTRACT: We examined factors related to conditions of life function and falls, including eye movements and gait variability, in community-dwelling older adults in Japan.

METHODS: Participants were 82 older adults (21 men, 61 women, mean age 76.1 years). We measured eye movements and gait variability during walking, and cognitive, attentional and life function. We compared two groups according to their fall history, and used a multiple logistic regression analysis to determine its relevance.

RESULTS: Fixation time, which was estimated from eye movements during obstacle crossing, and gait variability (vertical) were significantly associated with falls. There was also a significant correlation between fixation time and gait variability during obstacle crossing. In other words, the higher the gait variability in older adults, the higher the risk of falls, which was due to reduced attention estimated from eye movements during obstacle crossing that required obstacle avoidance.

CONCLUSIONS: These results show that poor attention during gait is a critical risk factor for falls in community-dwelling older adults. For fall prevention, it is necessary to promote exercises for attention, and to maintain an older adult-friendly pedestrian environment.

Inoue T, Kamijo K, Haraguchi K, Suzuki A, Noto M, Yamashita Y, Nakamura T. Risk factors for falls in terms of attention during gait in community-dwelling older adults. Geriatr Gerontol Int. 2018 Jun 27. doi: 10.1111/ggi.13462. [Epub ahead of print]

We hope you are standing up while you read this….

A newborn’s brain is only about one-quarter the size of an adult’s. It grows to about 80 percent of adult size by three years of age and 90 percent by age five (see above). This growth is largely due to changes in individual neurons and their connections, or synapses.

The truth is, most of our brain cells are formed at birth, In fact, we actually have MORE neurons BEFORE we are born. It is the formation of synapses, or connections between neurons, that actually accounts for the size change (see 1st picture above). This is largely shaped by experience and interaction with the environment.

Do you think children’s brains are less active than adults? Think again, your 3 year old’s brain is twice as active as yours! It isn’t until later in life that you actually start dialing back on some of those connections and those pathways degenerate or fade away…a process scientists call “pruning”.

How does this apply to gait? Gait depends on proprioception, or body position awareness. Your brain needs to know where your foot is, what it is standing on and so on. Proprioception, as we have discussed in other posts, is subserved by muscle and joint receptors called mechanoreceptors (muscle spindles, golgi tendon organs and type 1-4 joint mechanoreceptors to be exact). This information is fed to 2 main areas of the brain: the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum. These 2 parts of the central nervous system are interconnected on many levels.

The cerebellum is intimately associated with learning. Try this experiment. you will need a tape recorder (guess we are showing our ages, digital recorder), a timer and a moderately difficult book.

Sit down and pick a section of the book to read. start the recorder and timer and read aloud for 2 minutes. Stop reading, stop the recorder and stop the timer.

Stand up, somewhere you won’t get hurt if you fall. Stand on 1 leg (or if available, stand on a BOSU or rocker board). Open the book to a different spot. Start the timer, the recorder and start reading again for 2 minutes.

Sit back down and grab a snack. Listen to the 2 recordings and pay attention to the way you sound when you were reading, the speed, fluency and flow of words. Now think about recall. Which passage do you remember better?

The brain works best at multitasking and balance and coordination activities intimately affect learning. Having children sit in a class room and remain stationary and listen to a lecture is not the best way to learn. We always tel our students to get up and move around…

This article looks at this relationship in a slightly different way.

The Gait Guys….Sorting it out so you don’t have to.

We hope you are still standing : )

Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2011 Oct;21(5):663-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.2009.01027.x. Epub 2010 Mar 11

Motor coordination as predictor of physical activity in childhood.

Lopes VP, Rodrigues LP, Maia JA, Malina RM.

Source

Department of Sports Science, Research Center in Sports Sciences, Health Sciences and Human Development (CIDESD), Bragança, Portugal. vplopes@ipb.pt

Abstract

This study considers relationships among motor coordination (MC), physical fitness (PF) and physical activity (PA) in children followed longitudinally from 6 to 10 years. It is hypothesized that MC is a significant and primary predictor of PA in children. Subjects were 142 girls and 143 boys. Height, weight and skinfolds; PA (Godin-Shephard questionnaire); MC (Körperkoordination Test für Kinder); and PF (five fitness items) were measured. Hierarchical linear modeling with MC and PF as predictors of PA was used. The retained model indicated that PA at baseline differed significantly between boys (48.3 MET/week) and girls (40.0 MET/week). The interaction of MC and 1 mile run/walk had a positive influence on level of PA. The general trend for a decrease in PA level across years was attenuated or amplified depending on initial level of MC. The estimated rate of decline in PA was negligible for children with higher levels of MC at 6 years, but was augmented by 2.58 and 2.47 units each year, respectively, for children with low and average levels of initial MC. In conclusion MC is an important predictor of PA in children 6-10 years of age.

© 2009 John Wiley & Sons A/S.

Thinking while walking changes arm swing...

Maybe we should keep this in mind while "gait retraining" and "rehabbing". You could be inducing the changes you are seeing on a cortical level. 

This makes you wonder about walking and thinking about sometime else. Being mindful has its advantages, like less cortical laterality and dominance. Remember, in this study, the arm swing is les on the right, so theoretically, less cortical motor drive from the left side. No wonder your gait changes! Be careful which hand you are texting with : )...Better yet, don't walk and text....

Human arm swing looks and feels highly automated, yet it is increasingly apparent that higher centres, including the cortex, are involved in many aspects of locomotor control. The addition of a cognitive task increases arm swing asymmetry during walking, but the characteristics and mechanism of this asymmetry are unclear. We hypothesized that this effect is lateralized and a Stroop word-colour naming task-primarily involving left hemisphere structures-would reduce right arm swing only. We recorded gait in 83 healthy subjects aged 18-80 walking normally on a treadmill and while performing a congruent and incongruent Stroop task. The primary measure of arm swing asymmetry-an index based on both three-dimensional wrist trajectories in which positive values indicate proportionally smaller movements on the right-increased significantly under dual-task conditions in those aged 40-59 and further still in the over-60s, driven by reduced right arm flexion. Right arm swing attenuation appears to be the norm in humans performing a locomotor-cognitive dual-task, confirming a prominent role of the brain in locomotor behaviour. Women under 60 are surprisingly resistant to this effect, revealing unexpected gender differences atop the hierarchical chain of locomotor control.

R Soc Open Sci. 2017 Jan 25;4(1):160993. doi: 10.1098/rsos.160993. eCollection 2017 Jan.
Increasing cognitive load attenuates right arm swing in healthy human walking.
Killeen T1, Easthope CS1, Filli L2, Lőrincz L2, Schrafl-Altermatt M1, Brugger P2, Linnebank M3, Curt A1, Zörner B1, Bolliger M1.

free full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5319362/

Better gait = better cognition = Better gait

use it or lose it....

"This study demonstrates that cognitive flexibility is associated with walking, in particular under challenging walking conditions, in a cohort of older adults without relevant motor and cognitive deficits. We also demonstrated that older individuals with poor cognitive flexibility use a pattern in variability-related gait parameters across walking conditions that differs from individuals with good cognitive flexibility. This difference might indicate a lower capability of the former population to adapt to challenging walking situations with different demands. Our findings add relevant information to our understanding of gait and balance deficits in older adults with poor cognitive flexibility and may give a basis for interventional studies."

FREE full text available here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5442228/

Emulation as an Integrating Principle for Cognition

What you think, and what you think about matters…

More fodder for motor planning and other cortical activities. This article talks about what the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know” is all about; what you think can effect the outcome, but this article is focused on you and your actions, rather than the world around us.

This goes for gait retraining, rehab and a host of other things you may be trying to accomplish (even beyond the world of gait, if you can believe such a world exists!)

What you do matters bascially. And when you do it right, there is neurologic reinforcement of those motor behaviours. And when you do it wrong, meaning you cheat or compensate, there is neurologic reinforcement of those motor behaviours as well. 

We often hear it is better to do something right the first time than to have to do it truly properly a second time.  There is far more to it than correcting your ways. Now you have to rewrite another motor pattern, while the old one remains stored waiting for you to cheat or take a short cut the next time. 

If something is worth doing, do it right the first time.  This goes for gait and running form retraining.  This is why running form is such a big business these days, so many have been running incorrectly, emulating improper motor patterns. 

When Nike said “Just do it”…….we think they meant, “Just do it right.”

The Gait Guys

Emulation as an Integrating Principle for Cognition

Front Hum Neurosci. 2011; 5 : 54.

Published online 2011 May 27. doi:  10.3389/fnhum.2011.00054

Abstract

Emulations, defined as ongoing internal representations of potential actions and the futures those actions are expected to produce, play a critical role in directing human bodily activities. Studies of gross motor behavior, perception, allocation of attention, response to errors, interoception, and homeostatic activities, and higher cognitive reasoning suggest that the proper execution of all these functions relies on emulations. Further evidence supports the notion that reinforcement learning in humans is aimed at updating emulations, and that action selection occurs via the advancement of preferred emulations toward realization of their action and environmental prediction. Emulations are hypothesized to exist as distributed active networks of neurons in cortical and sub-cortical structures. This manuscript ties together previously unrelated theories of the role of prediction in different aspects of human information processing to create an integrated framework for cognition.