ArticleExperimental brain research2014
An apparent contradiction: increasing variability to achieve greater precision?
Article in Experimental brain research, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- Local dynamic stability during gait for predicting falls in elderly people: A one-year prospective study.PloS one · 2018Trial
- Trial
- Foot placement coordination is impaired in people with Parkinson's disease.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Stability of performance in a hierarchical system during isometric force production and effects of visual feedback.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- The individuality of plantar pressure indices enables the reduction of descriptive gait data required for diagnostic purposes.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Error compensation in a redundant system during 'failure' of individual motor elements.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- Two aspects of feed-forward control of action stability: effects of action speed and unexpected events.Experimental brain research · 2024Article
- How older adults regulate lateral stepping on narrowing walking paths.Journal of biomechanics · 2023Article
- Novel lower-extremity dexterity assessment for Parkinson's disease: validation against measures of arm dexterity and general mobility.Disability and rehabilitation · 2023Article
- Training with a Heavy Puck Elicits a Higher Increase of Shooting Speed Than Unloaded Training in Midget Ice Hockey Players.Journal of human kinetics · 2022Article
- Article
- The Effects of Challenging Walking Conditions on Kinematic Synergy and Stability of Gait in People with Knee Osteoarthritis: A Study Protocol.Advanced biomedical research · 2022Article
- One more time about motor (and non-motor) synergies.Experimental brain research · 2021Review
- Effects of gait rehabilitation on motor coordination in stroke survivors: an UCM-based approach.Experimental brain research · 2021Article
- Uncontrolled manifold analysis of the effects of a perturbation-based training on the organization of leg joint variance in cerebellar ataxia.Experimental brain research · 2021Article
- Older but not younger adults rely on multijoint coordination to stabilize the swinging limb when performing a novel cued walking task.Experimental brain research · 2020Article
- Stroke survivors exhibit stronger lower extremity synergies in more challenging walking conditions.Experimental brain research · 2019Article
- Differential control of task and null space variability in response to changes in task difficulty when learning a bimanual steering task.Experimental brain research · 2019Article
- Recommendation for the minimum number of steps to analyze when performing the uncontrolled manifold analysis on walking data.Journal of biomechanics · 2019Article
- Instability Resistance Training Decreases Motor Noise During Challenging Walking Tasks in Older Adults: A 10-Week Double-Blinded RCT.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
To understand the relationship between variability of foot placement in the frontal plane and stability of gait patterns, we explored how constraining mediolateral foot placement during walking affects the structure of kinematic variance in the lower-limb configuration space during the swing phase of gait. Ten young subjects walked under three conditions: (1) unconstrained (normal walking), (2) constrained (walking overground with visual guides for foot placement to achieve the measured unconstrained step width) and, (3) beam (walking on elevated beams spaced to achieve the measured unconstrained step width). The uncontrolled manifold analysis of the joint configuration variance was used to quantify two variance components, one that did not affect the mediolateral trajectory of the foot in the frontal plane ("good variance") and one that affected this trajectory ("bad variance"). Based on recent studies, we hypothesized that across conditions (1) the index of the synergy stabilizing the mediolateral trajectory of the foot (the normalized difference between the "good variance" and "bad variance") would systematically increase and (2) the changes in the synergy index would be associated with a disproportionate increase in the "good variance." Both hypotheses were confirmed. We conclude that an increase in the "good variance" component of the joint configuration variance may be an effective method of ensuring high stability of gait patterns during conditions requiring increased control of foot placement, particularly if a postural threat is present. Ultimately, designing interventions that encourage a larger amount of "good variance" may be a promising method of improving stability of gait patterns in populations such as older adults and neurological patients.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.