Effects of Shank Vibration on Lean After-Effect

Abstract

Postural adaptability is related to central sensory integration and reweighting efficiency. Incline-interventions lead to lean after-effect (LAE), but it is not fully known how sensory reweighting may affect the magnitude and duration of LAE. We tasked fifteen young and healthy subjects with performing incline-interventions under conditions designed to perturb proprioception during or after the incline-intervention. We found that support surface configuration affected responses to tendon vibration. Additionally, vibration during an incline-intervention did not inhibit LAE, but vibration during an after-effect significantly affected LAE. Results reinforce claims that postural adaptation is based on modifications of central mechanisms of perception, not peripheral shank proprioceptors and improve our understanding of the role of sensory reweighting and sensory integration into postural adaptability.

Keywords:

• posture
• sensory integration
• body schema
• adaptation
• proprioception

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the helpful contributions of Beom-Chan Lee, Benjamin Tamber-Roseneu and Pranav J Parikh as well as the selfless time of our experimental subjects.

Disclosure statement

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