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Effects of magnitude and magnitude predictability of postural perturbations on preparatory cortical activity in older adults with and without Parkinson’s disease

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Abstract

The goal of this study was to identify whether impaired cortical preparation may relate to impaired scaling of postural responses of people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). We hypothesized that impaired scaling of postural responses in participants with PD would be associated with impaired set-dependent cortical activity in preparation for perturbations of predictable magnitudes. Participants performed postural responses to backward surface translations. We examined the effects of perturbation magnitude (predictable small vs. predictable large) and predictability of magnitude (predictable vs. unpredictable-in-magnitude) on postural responses (center-of-pressure (CoP) displacements) and on preparatory electroencephalographic (EEG) measures of contingent negative variation (CNV) and alpha and beta event-related desynchronization (ERD). Our results showed that unpredictability of perturbation magnitude, but not the magnitude of the perturbation itself, was associated with increased CNV amplitude at the CZ electrode in both groups. While control participants scaled their postural responses to the predicted magnitude of the perturbation, their condition-related changes in CoP displacements were not correlated with condition-related changes in EEG preparatory activity (CNV or ERD). In contrast, participants with PD did not scale their postural responses to the predicted magnitude of the perturbation, but they did demonstrate greater beta ERD in the condition of predictably small-magnitude perturbations and greater beta ERD than the control participants at the CZ electrode. In addition, increased beta ERD in PD was associated with decreased adaptability of postural responses, suggesting that preparatory cortical activity may have a more direct influence on postural response scaling for people with PD than for control participants.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our participants. We would like to thank Kristin Lucas, PT, DPT, for her invaluable assistance with data collections. We would like to acknowledge our funding sources: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Aging R37 A60006457 (FBH), National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development F32 HD070796 (BAS), Medical Research Foundation of Oregon (BAS), the Foundation for Physical Therapy (BAS) and National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Aging T32AG023477. Funding sources provided funding only and did not influence the work. Abstracts of this work were presented at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Conferences in 2010 (San Diego, CA) and 2011 (Washington, DC), the Oregon Physical Therapy Association Annual Conference (Portland, OR, April 2011) and the Pacific Northwest Basal Ganglia Coterie (Hood River, OR, May 2011).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Balance Disorders Laboratory, Departments of Neurology and Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health and Science University, 505 NW 185th Ave., Beaverton, OR, 97006, USA

    Beth A. Smith & Fay B. Horak

  2. Human Motion Analysis Laboratory, Department of Rehabilitation and Movement Science, University of Vermont, 306A Rowell Hall, 106 Carrigan Dr., Burlington, VT, 05405, USA

    Jesse V. Jacobs

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  1. Beth A. Smith
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Correspondence to Beth A. Smith.

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Smith, B.A., Jacobs, J.V. & Horak, F.B. Effects of magnitude and magnitude predictability of postural perturbations on preparatory cortical activity in older adults with and without Parkinson’s disease. Exp Brain Res 222, 455–470 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3232-3

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