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Asymmetric Walkway: A Novel Behavioral Assay for Studying Asymmetric Locomotion
Published on: January 15, 2016
Prefrontal cortex as a compensatory network in ataxic gait: a correlation study between cortical activity and gait
Pietro Caliandro1, Mariano Serrao2, Luca Padua3
1Institute of Neurology, Catholic University, L.go F. Vito, Rome, Italy.
Purpose:
To investigate whether prefrontal cortex (PFC) functioning during ataxic gait is linked to compensatory mechanisms or to the typical intra-subject variability of the ataxic gait.
Methods:
Nineteen patients with chronic ataxia and fifteen healthy subjects were evaluated. The subjects were requested to walk along a straight distance of 10 meters while PFC oxygenation and gait parameters were assessed. PFC activity was evaluated by NIRO-200 while gait analysis was performed by the SMART-D500. To investigate the intra-subject variability of gait, we calculated the coefficient of multiple correlation (CMC) of the hip, knee and ankle kinematic waveforms furthermore, we evaluated the step width.
Results:
We observed a positive correlation between PFC bilateral oxygenation changes and the step width (r = 0.54; p = 0.02 for the right PFC, and r = 0.50; p = 0.03 for the left PFC). No correlation was found between PFC activity and CMC of the hip, knee and ankle waveforms.
Conclusions:
Our results suggest that PFC activity is linked to gait compensatory mechanisms more than to the variability of the joint kinematic parameters caused by a defective cerebellar control.
