Transfer of postural adaptation depends on context of prior exposure

Postural control is significantly affected by the postural base of support; however, the effects on postural adaptation are not well understood. Here we investigated how adaptation and transfer of anticipatory postural control are affected by stance width. Subjects made reaching movements in a novel dynamic environment while holding the handle of a force-generating robotic arm. Each subject initially adapted to the dynamics while standing in a wide stance and then switched to a narrow stance, or vice versa. Our hypothesis is that anticipatory postural control, reflected in center of pressure (COP) movement, is not affected by stance width, as long as the control remains within functional limits; therefore we predicted that subjects in either stance would show similar COP movement by the end of adaptation and immediately upon transfer to the other stance. We found that both groups showed similar adaptation of postural control, by using different muscle activation strategies to account for the differing stance widths. One group, after adapting in wide stance, transferred similar postural control to narrow stance, by modifying their muscle activity to account for the new stance. Interestingly, the other group showed an increase in postural control when transferring from narrow to wide stance, associated with no change in muscle activity. These results confirm that adaptation of anticipatory postural control is not affected by stance width, as long as the control remains within biomechanical limits. However, transfer of control between stance widths is affected by the initial context in which the task is learned.