Congratulations to faculty members, Drs. Mark Carpenter and J. Tim Inglis and fellow members of the Origins of Balance Deficits and Falls cluster, Bastiaan Bloem, Martin McKeown and Taylor W.Cleworth on their recent publication: “A Novel MRI Compatible Balance Simulator to Detect Postural Instability in Parkinson’s Disease”, which was recently published in Frontiers in Neurology – the world leading open-access journal in its field.
Postural instability is a debilitating and largely treatment-resistant symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD). A better understanding of the neural substrates contributing to postural instability could lead to new targets for improved pharmacological and neurosurgical interventions. However, investigating these neural substrates necessitates the use of functional MRI scanners, which are almost exclusively horizontally-based. The team aimed to develop, and validate the use of, an MRI compatible balance simulator to study static and dynamic balance control in PD patients and elderly controls.
Deficits in static and dynamic balance control can be detected in PD patients using a novel MRI compatible balance simulator. This novel technique allows for functional neuroimaging to be combined with balance-relevant tasks, and provides a new means to create insights into the neural substrates contributing to postural instability in PD.
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