Presenter Information

Douglas RowenFollow

Advisor Information

Nick Stergiou

Location

Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library

Presentation Type

Poster

Start Date

2-3-2018 9:00 AM

End Date

2-3-2018 10:15 AM

Abstract

Walking is one of the most important activities of daily life as it is needed to maintain independence and quality of life. A common rehabilitation approach to improve walking involves using an audio or visual external cue (e.g. metronome) to provide patients with spatial or temporal information on when or where to step. Previous research has shown that individuals are capable of synchronizing their steps with a metronome and in pathological populations, improvements to gait characteristics have been shown. More recently, metronomes with different temporal structures that closely mimic natural movement have been shown to closely resemble natural walking. It is unknown however, how walking to a metronome impacts the brain, and if any changes in cortical hemodynamics, blood flow to the brain, occur when walking to a metronome. Thus, this study uses functional near infrared spectroscopy to measure the cortical changes in blood flow that occur when walking to the different types of visual metronomes. The results show that the all three metronomes had increases in the prefrontal cortex and the supplementary motor area and the white metronome had additional increases in the motor cortex. This means that the white metronome may take more concentration to synchronize to thus causing the increase in brain activity.

COinS
 
Mar 2nd, 9:00 AM Mar 2nd, 10:15 AM

Fractal scaling of visual metronomes affects cortical hemodynamics

Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library

Walking is one of the most important activities of daily life as it is needed to maintain independence and quality of life. A common rehabilitation approach to improve walking involves using an audio or visual external cue (e.g. metronome) to provide patients with spatial or temporal information on when or where to step. Previous research has shown that individuals are capable of synchronizing their steps with a metronome and in pathological populations, improvements to gait characteristics have been shown. More recently, metronomes with different temporal structures that closely mimic natural movement have been shown to closely resemble natural walking. It is unknown however, how walking to a metronome impacts the brain, and if any changes in cortical hemodynamics, blood flow to the brain, occur when walking to a metronome. Thus, this study uses functional near infrared spectroscopy to measure the cortical changes in blood flow that occur when walking to the different types of visual metronomes. The results show that the all three metronomes had increases in the prefrontal cortex and the supplementary motor area and the white metronome had additional increases in the motor cortex. This means that the white metronome may take more concentration to synchronize to thus causing the increase in brain activity.