Article

Previous research exploring a lateral stepping gait utilized amount of variability (i.e. coefficient of variation) in the medial-lateral (ML) and
anterior-posterior (AP) direction to propose that the central nervous system's
active control over gait in any direction is dependent on the direction of
progression. This study sought to further explore this notion through the study
of the temporal structure of variability which is reflective of the neuromuscular
system's organization of the movement over time.
The largest Lyapunov exponent
(LyE) of the reconstructed attractors for the foot's movement in the AP and ML
was calculated. Results revealed that despite the obvious mechanical differences
between a lateral stepping gait and typical forward walking, the central nervous
system's organization of the movement of the feet is similar in the primary
planes of progression, as well as the secondary planes of progression, despite
being different anatomical planes during the locomotive tasks. In addition,
consistent with previous studies exploring amount of variability, the secondary
plane for both locomotive tasks proved to have larger LyE values than the primary
plane of progression (F1,9=35.086, p<0.001). This is consistent with less
dependency from stride-to-stride in the secondary plane implying increased active control.
CI - Copyright (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS