Adaptation of postural control to weightlessness

Summary

Adaptation of motor control to weightlessness was studied during a 7-day spaceflight. The maintenance of control of upright posture was examined during a voluntary raising movement of the arm and during the voluntary raising on tiptoe. In order to evaluate the contribution of visual cues, three types of visual situations were examined: normal vision, central vision, and without vision. On the basis of cinematographic and mechanographic data, the postural perturbations consecutive to the movement of a body part in conditions of weightlessness were found to be similar to those observed on earth. However, in weightlessness, in contrast to the ground-based situation, erectness of posture was maintained primarily due to the predominant contraction of the ankle flexor muscles. The sequences of postural leg muscle activity associated with the arm or foot movement were well structured and varied slightly in the course of the flight. In addition, the initial posture, that is the erect posture before the movement was executed, changed throughout the flight from an exaggerated oblique position to a terrestrial standing position. Visual information was preponderant at the beginning of the space mission for the recalibration of other sensory cues affected by weightlessness. The findings are indicative of two types of adaptation of the central program of posture regulation to weightlessness: fast, short-term adaptation, characterized by a quasi-instantaneous redistribution of motor commands between ankle flexors and extensors (an “operative process”) and slow, long-term adaptation, exemplified by the loss of anticipatory activation of certain muscles by the end of the flight (a “conservative process”).