Locomotor sensory organization test: a novel paradigm for the assessment of sensory contributions in gait.

Feedback based balance control requires the integration of visual, proprioceptive and vestibular input to detect the body's movement within the environment. When the accuracy of sensory signals is compromised, the system reorganizes the relative contributions through a process of sensory recalibration, for upright postural stability to be maintained. Whereas this process has been studied extensively in standing using the Sensory Organization Test (SOT), less is known about these processes in more dynamic tasks such as locomotion.

Age-dependent modulation of sensory reweighting for controlling posture in a dynamic virtual environment.

Older adults require more time to reweight sensory information for maintaining balance that could potentially lead to increased incidence of falling in rapidly changing or cognitively demanding environments. In this study, we manipulated the visual surround information during a collision avoidance task in order to investigate how young and elderly adults engage in sensory reweighting under conditions of visual anticipation. Sixteen healthy elderly (age: 71.