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Vibratory noise to the fingertip enhances balance improvement associated with light touch

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Abstract

Light touch of a fingertip on an external stable surface greatly improves the postural stability of standing subjects. The hypothesis of the present work was that a vibrating surface could increase the effectiveness of fingertip signaling to the central nervous system (e.g., by a stochastic resonance mechanism) and hence improve postural stability beyond that achieved by light touch. Subjects stood quietly over a force plate while touching with their right index fingertip a surface that could be either quiescent or randomly vibrated at two low-level noise intensities. The vibratory noise of the contact surface caused a significant decrease in postural sway, as assessed by center of pressure measures in both time and frequency domains. Complementary experiments were designed to test whether postural control improvements were associated with a stochastic resonance mechanism or whether attentional mechanisms could be contributing. A full curve relating body sway parameters and different levels of vibratory noise resulted in a U-like function, suggesting that the improvement in sway relied on a stochastic resonance mechanism. Additionally, no decrease in postural sway was observed when the vibrating contact surface was attached to the subject’s body, suggesting that no attentional mechanisms were involved. These results indicate that sensory cues obtained from the fingertip need not necessarily be associated with static contact surfaces to cause improvement in postural stability. A low-level noisy vibration applied to the contact surface could lead to a better performance of the postural control system.

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Notes

  1. It has been previously demonstrated that optimal configurations of the motion tracking system are able to produce measurements with precision and repeatability less than 1 μm (Schmidt et al. 2009). Nevertheless, additional measurements were performed (all with the subject touching the surface) with higher intensities of vibratory noise, so that measured displacements were within the resolution of the tracking system warranted by the manufacturer (100 μm). A linear relationship between the intensity of the noise signals delivered to the input of the shaker and both displacements and acceleration measures was observed. This confirmed that the estimation of RMS displacement values about 0.050 and 0.100 mm (corresponding to the 0.4 and 0.8  g noise RMS acceleration values, respectively) was indeed reliable.

Abbreviations

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

AP:

Anterior–posterior

BS:

Best stimulation

COP:

Center of pressure

COPap:

COP in the anterior–posterior axis

COPml:

COP in the medio-lateral axis

g :

Gravity of Earth

HF:

High frequencies

LF:

Low frequencies

LT:

Light touch

ML:

Medio-lateral

PSD:

Power spectral density

QS:

Quiet standing

RMS:

Root mean square

RMSap:

COPap RMS

RMSml:

COPml RMS

SD:

Standard deviation

SR:

Stochastic resonance

VMap:

COPap velocity

VMml:

COPml velocity

VS1:

Vibratory stimulation 1, at intensity 0.4  g

VS2:

Vibratory stimulation 2, at intensity 0.8  g

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by CNPq. The first author is a recipient of a fellowship from FAPESP, grant #2007/03608-9. We are grateful to Sandro A. Miqueleti for his invaluable technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neuroscience Program and Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, Universidade de São Paulo, EPUSP, PTC, Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, Travessa 3, n. 158, 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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Magalhães, F.H., Kohn, A.F. Vibratory noise to the fingertip enhances balance improvement associated with light touch. Exp Brain Res 209, 139–151 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-010-2529-3

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