ArticleThe Journal of physiology2018
Predictive neuromechanical simulations indicate why walking performance declines with ageing.
Article in The Journal of physiology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers.
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Who cites it
59 citing papers in PubMed.
- Multidimensional biomechanical modulation of walking reveals a threshold decline in distal ankle propulsion across aging.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Article
- Unified comparison of spinal locomotion control architectures in neuromechanical simulations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Predictive Neuromechanical Simulation Explains Gait Biomechanics in Obesity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Motor reaction time in older women with different degrees of sarcopenia: What do electroencephalograms show?Einstein (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2026Observational
- Changes in lower limb muscle strength and corresponding gait changes following hip fractures in older adults: a narrative review.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Review
- The effect of age-related sensorimotor changes on step-down strategy: a predictive simulation study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Biomechanical Characterisation of Gait in Older Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study Using Inertial Sensor-Based Motion Capture.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The role of physical activity in mitigating age-related changes in the neuromuscular control of gait.npj aging · 2025Article
- Comparative analysis of ground reaction forces and spatiotemporal gait parameters in older adults with sway-back posture and chronic low back pain: a cross-sectional study.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Abnormal activity in the brainstem affects gait in a neuromusculoskeletal model.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Biomechanical models in the lower-limb exoskeletons development: a review.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2025Review
- How knee muscles and ground reaction forces shape knee buckling and ankle push-off in neuromuscular simulations of human walking.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Estimating within-stride metabolic cost from stride-average data using autoencoders and expander networks.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2025Article
- Observational
- Observational
- Perturbation-based estimation of within-stride cycle metabolic cost.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- Does crouch alter the effects of neuromuscular impairments on gait? A simulation study.Journal of biomechanics · 2024Article
- Optimizing exoskeleton assistance to improve walking speed and energy economy for older adults.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- Changes in walking function and neural control following pelvic cancer surgery with reconstruction.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2024Article
- Impact of sole designs of offloading AFO on gait dynamics: a predictive neuromechanical simulation study.Proceedings of the ... IEEE/RAS-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics. IEEE/RAS-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
key pointsAlthough the natural decline in walking performance with ageing affects the quality of life of a growing elderly population, its physiological origins remain unknown. By using predictive neuromechanical simulations of human walking with age-related neuro-musculo-skeletal changes, we find evidence that the loss of muscle strength and muscle contraction speed dominantly contribute to the reduced walking economy and speed. The findings imply that focusing on recovering these muscular changes may be the only effective way to improve performance in elderly walking. More generally, the work is of interest for investigating the physiological causes of altered gait due to age, injury and disorders. ABSTRACT: Healthy elderly people walk slower and energetically less efficiently than young adults. This decline in walking performance lowers the quality of life for a growing ageing population, and understanding its physiological origin is critical for devising interventions that can delay or revert it. However, the origin of the decline in walking performance remains unknown, as ageing produces a range of physiological changes whose individual effects on gait are difficult to separate in experiments with human subjects. Here we use a predictive neuromechanical model to separately address the effects of common age-related changes to the skeletal, muscular and nervous systems. We find in computer simulations of this model that the combined changes produce gait consistent with elderly walking and that mainly the loss of muscle strength and mass reduces energy efficiency. In addition, we find that the slower preferred walking speed of elderly people emerges in the simulations when adapting to muscle fatigue, again mainly caused by muscle-related changes. The results suggest that a focus on recovering these muscular changes may be the only effective way to improve performance in elderly walking.
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