In: Acta Physiologica, 2017, vol. 220, no. 2, p. 289–299
Although it is well established that an external (EF) compared to an internal (IF) or neutral focus of attention enhances motor performance, little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms. This study aimed to clarify whether the focus of attention influences not only motor performance but also activity of the primary motor cortex (M1) when executing identical fatiguing tasks of the...
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In: Human Movement Science, 2018, vol. 59, p. 170–177
Postural control undergoes rapid changes during child development. However, the influence of balance training (BT) on the compensation of perturbations has not yet been investigated in children. For this purpose, young (6.7 ± 0.6 years) and old children (12.0 ± 0.4 years) were exposed to externally induced anticipated (direction known) and non-anticipated (direction unknown)...
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In: Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 2016, vol. 8, p. -
Postural control declines across adult lifespan. Non-physical balance training has been suggested as an alternative to improve postural control in frail/immobilized elderly people. Previous studies showed that this kind of training can improve balance control in young and older adults. However, it is unclear whether the brain of young and older adults is activated differently during mental...
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In: Journal of Neurophysiology, 2018, vol. 120, no. 3, p. 1010–1016
Cortical excitability increases during the performance of more difficult postural tasks. However, it is possible that changes in postural threat associated with more difficult tasks may in themselves lead to alterations in the neural strategies underlying postural control. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine whether changes in postural threat are responsible for the...
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In: Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 2018, vol. 12, p. -
Aging is associated with a shift from an automatic to a more cortical postural control strategy, which goes along with deteriorations in postural stability. Although balance training has been shown to effectively counteract these behavioral deteriorations, little is known about the effect of balance training on brain activity during postural tasks in older adults. We, therefore, assessed...
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In: Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine, 2017, vol. 16, p. 11
Background: While the positive effect of balance training on age-related impairments in postural stability is well-documented, the neural correlates of such training adaptations in older adults remain poorly understood. This study therefore aimed to shed more light on neural adaptations in response to balance training in older adults.Methods: Postural stability as well as spinal reflex and...
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In: Cortex, 2015, vol. 64, p. 102–114
After immobilization, patients show impaired postural control and increased risk of falling. Therefore, loss of balance control should already be counteracted during immobilization. Previously, studies have demonstrated that both motor imagery (MI) and action observation (AO) can improve motor performance. The current study elaborated how the brain is activated during imagination and observation...
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In: PLoS ONE, 2013, vol. 8, no. 12, p. e81038
It is well known that following skill learning, improvements in motor performance may transfer to the untrained contralateral limb. It is also well known that retention of a newly learned task A can be degraded when learning a competing task B that takes place directly after learning A. Here we investigate if this interference effect can also be observed in the limb contralateral to the trained...
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In: Journal of Sports Sciences, 2015, vol. 33, no. 10, p. 1067–1075
Factors such as an external focus of attention (EF) and augmented feedback (AF) have been shown to improve performance. However, the efficacy of providing AF to enhance motor performance has never been compared with the effects of an EF or an internal focus of attention (IF). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to identify which of the three conditions (AF, EF or IF) leads to the...
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In: Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 2014, vol. 24, no. 6, p. e456-461
High fall rates causing injury and enormous financial costs are reported for children. However, only few studies investigated the effects of balance training in children and these studies did not find enhanced balance performance in postural (transfer) tests. Consequently, it was previously speculated that classical balance training might not be stimulating enough for children to adequately...
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