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Effectiveness of electrical noise in reducing postural sway: a comparison between imperceptible stimulation applied to the anterior and to the posterior leg muscles

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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study was to investigate whether subsensory electrical noise stimulation applied over the tibialis anterior (TA) muscles may reduce postural oscillations during quiet stance and to compare such reductions with those obtained by applying the noise stimulation over the triceps surae (TS) muscles. The rationale relies on the use of noise stimulation to enhance the sensitivity of sensory receptors, thereby improving the performance of the postural control system. As recent evidence suggested that the TA muscle might be a better source of proprioceptive information during quiet stance than the TS muscles, the main hypothesis of the present study was that subsensory noise stimulation applied to the TA muscles should be more efficient for postural stabilization than a similar stimulation to the TS.

Methods

Participants had their postural steadiness assessed while subsensory electrical noise was applied bilaterally to their TA or TS muscles and also while the stimulation was applied bilaterally to both TA and TS muscles. No stimulation was delivered in the control condition.

Results

Time-domain and frequency-domain parameters based on center of mass and center of pressure signals were significantly reduced when noise stimulation was applied to the anterior and/or to the posterior leg muscles. No consistent differences in postural sway parameters were observed among the stimulation conditions.

Conclusions

This is the first investigation showing that subsensory stimulation applied over the TA muscles alone is effective in attenuating postural sway, with TS stimulation being equally effective. These findings may have useful applications for the development of medical/rehabilitation devices designed to improve postural steadiness in people with balance impairments.

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Notes

  1. By visually inspecting each COM/COP signal and their associated PSDs, 4 out of 220 signals were identified as being clearly affected by artifacts. Therefore, these “contaminated” signals were considered as outliers and were excluded from the analyses. Such a procedure did not bias the results and the associated interpretations because the 4 outliers were from different subjects and from different experimental conditions (i.e., for each experimental condition, one out of the 11 subjects had his/her average values computed from 4 rather than from 5 trials).

  2. To estimate the statistical power associated with the Bonferroni’s post hoc tests, the alpha value (initially set at 0.05) was corrected to 0.0125 to account for the Bonferroni’s correction used to evaluate each comparison.

Abbreviations

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

AP:

Anterior–posterior

COM:

Center of mass

COMap:

COM in the anterior–posterior axis

COMml:

COM in the medio-lateral axis

COP:

Center of pressure

COPap:

COP in the anterior–posterior axis

COPml:

COP in the medio-lateral axis

HF:

High frequencies

LF:

Low frequencies

ML:

Medio-lateral

PSD:

Power spectral density

RMS:

Root mean square

RMSap:

COPap(COMap) RMS

RMSml:

COPml(COMml) RMS

ST:

Sensory threshold

TA:

Tibialis anterior

TS:

Triceps surae

VMap:

COPap(COMap) velocity

VMml:

COPml(COMml) velocity

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank FAPESP (Grant #2011/17193-0) and CNPq (Grant # 303313/2011-0) for supporting their studies. The first author (FHM) was a recipient of a fellowship from FAPESP (Grant #2011/13222-6).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, Universidade de São Paulo, EACH-USP, São Paulo, Brazil

    Fernando Henrique Magalhães

  2. Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, Universidade de São Paulo, EPUSP, Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, Travessa 3, n. 158, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Fernando Henrique Magalhães & André Fabio Kohn

  3. Neuroscience Program, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Fernando Henrique Magalhães & André Fabio Kohn

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  1. Fernando Henrique Magalhães
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Correspondence to Fernando Henrique Magalhães.

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Communicated by Fausto Baldissera.

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Magalhães, F.H., Kohn, A.F. Effectiveness of electrical noise in reducing postural sway: a comparison between imperceptible stimulation applied to the anterior and to the posterior leg muscles. Eur J Appl Physiol 114, 1129–1141 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-014-2846-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-014-2846-5

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