Gender-specific visual perturbation effects on muscle activation during incline treadmill walking: a virtual reality study

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of different visual rotation speeds and types of visual perturbation in virtual reality (VR) on lower extremity muscle activation during incline treadmill walking. Twenty healthy young adults walked on an incline treadmill with six different visual perturbation paradigms in VR (normal VR, 10°/s rotation, 20°/s rotation, 30°/s rotation, 60°/s rotation, and random speed rotation). Muscle activation of the lower extremity was measured by surface electromyography. Results showed an increased visual rotation speed induced higher vastus lateralis and lateral gastrocnemius activation. Females and males had different responses to increased visual rotation speed in vastus lateralis. Random speed rotation induced higher medial hamstring activation than constant speed rotation, in which was more pronounced in females. In conclusion, the amount of visual perturbation should be taken into consideration when developing future VR training for astronauts.

Practitioner summary

Visual perturbation elicited higher muscle activation than normal condition during incline treadmill walking, and this perturbation effect was magnitude dependent and gender specific. These findings suggested that performance training with systematically manipulated visual perturbations might increase specific muscle activations. Gender differences should be considered in developing future performance training in space.

Keywords:

• Gait
• electromyography
• visual flow
• simulation
• space medicine

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the NASA Nebraska Space Grant & EPSCoR (NNX15AK50A)