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Updated: Dec 17, 2025

Experimental Methods to Study Human Postural Control
Published on: September 11, 2019
A Proposed Postural Control Theory Synthesizing Optimal Feedback Control Theory, Postural Motor Learning, and
Nathan Morelli1, Matthew Hoch1
1Sports Medicine Research Institute, College of Health Sciences, 4530University of Kentucky.
Abstract:
Multiple theories regarding motor learning and postural control development aim to explain how the central nervous system (CNS) acquires, adjusts, and learns postural behaviors. However, few theories of postural motor development and learning propose possible neurophysiologic correlates to support their assumptions. Evidence from behavioral and computational models support the cerebellum's role in supervising motor learning through the production of forward internal models, corrected by sensory prediction errors. Optimal Feedback Control Theory (OFCT) states that the CNS learns new behaviors by minimizing the cost of multi-joint movements that attain a task goal. By synthesizing principles of the OFCT, postural sway characteristics, and cerebellar anatomy and its internal models, we propose an integrated learning model in which cerebellar supervision of postural control is governed by movement cost functions.
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