The effect of hypergravity on upright balance and voluntary sway

We compared voluntary oscillatory sway for eight subjects tested in 1.8-g and 1-g gravito-inertial force (GIF) levels of parabolic flight. Subjects performed voluntary forward-backward (FB) and lateral left-right (LR) swaying as the forces and moments under the soles of each foot were measured. We calculated the experimental values of three parameters: two ankle stiffness parameters K_S^AP and K_S^ML acting in orthogonal FB and LR directions and one parameter K_ED related to leg pivot shifting. Simulations of the engaged leg model (Bakshi A, DiZio P, Lackner JR. J Neurophysiol 121: 2042-2060, 2019; Bakshi A, DiZio P, Lackner JR. J Neurophysiol 121: 2028-2041, 2019) correctly predicted the experimentally determined stability bounds of upright balance and also the scaling of the postural parameters as a function of GIF magnitude. The effective stiffness, K_S^AP, at the ankles played the primary role to prevent falling in FB swaying and both model predictions, and experimental data showed K_S^AP to scale up in proportion to GIF magnitude. For LR swaying, the model predicted a 3:4 scaling of anterior-posterior stiffness to change in GIF magnitude, which was borne out by the experimental data. Simulations predict stability (nonfalling) not to depend on lateral stiffness, K_S^ML, which was experimentally found not to depend on the GIF magnitude. Both model and experiment showed that the geometry-dependent pivot shift parameter K_ED was invariant to a change in GIF magnitude. Thus the ELM explains voluntary sway and balance in altered GIF magnitude conditions, rotating environments with Coriolis perturbations of sway, as well as normal terrestrial conditions.NEW & NOTEWORTHY A nonparallel leg model of balance, the engaged leg model (ELM), was previously developed to characterize adaptive balance control in a rotating environment. Here we show the ELM also explains sway in hypergravity. It predicts the changes in balance control parameters with changes in gravity. ELM is currently the only balance model applicable to artificial and hypergravity conditions. ELM can also be applied to terrestrial clinical situations for pathologies that generate postural asymmetries.