Background: Balance challenges are associated with not only the aging process but also a wide variety of psychiatric and neurological disorders. However, relatively little is known regarding the neural basis of balance and the effects of balance interventions on the brain. Research Question: This review synthesizes the existing literature to answer the question: What are the key brain structures associated with balance? Methods: This review examined 37 studies that assessed brain structures in relation to balance assessment or intervention. These studies provided 234 findings implicating 71 brain structures. The frequency of implication for each structure was examined based upon specific methodological parameters, including study design (assessment/intervention), type of balance measured (static/ dynamic), population (clinical/non-clinical), and imaging analysis technique (region of interest [ROI]/voxel-based morphometry [VBM]).Results: Although a number of structures were associated with balance across the brain, the most frequently implicated structures included the cerebellum, basal ganglia, thalamus, hippocampus,
Previously, we determined that rodents' vulnerability to food restriction (FR)-evoked wheel running during adolescence (activity-based anorexia, ABA) is associated with failures to increase GABAergic innervation of hippocampal and medial prefrontal pyramidal neurons. Since brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) promotes GABAergic synaptogenesis, we hypothesized that individual differences in this vulnerability may arise from differences in the link between BDNF bioavailability and FR-evoked wheel running. We tested this hypothesis in male BDNF-Val66Met knock-in mice (BDNFMet/Met), known for reduction in the activity-dependent BDNF secretion and elevated anxiety-like behaviors. We found that 1) in the absence of FR or a wheel (i.e., control), BDNFMet/Met mice are more anxious than wild-type (WT) littermates, 2) electron microscopically verified GABAergic innervations of pyramidal neurons of BDNFMet/Met mice are reduced at distal dendrites in hippocampal CA1 and medial prefrontal cortex, 3) following ABA, WT mice exhibit anxiety equal to those of the BDNFMet/Met mice and have lost GABAergic innervation along distal dendrites, 4) BDNFMet/Met mice show blunted ABA vulnerability, and 5) unexpectedly, GABAergic innervation is higher at somata of BDNFMet/Met mice than of WT. We conclude that lamina-specific GABAergic inhibition is important for regulating anxiety, whether arising from environmental stress, such as food deprivation, or genetically, such as BDNFMet/Met single nucleotide polymorphism.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder struggle with motor difficulties throughout the life span, and these motor difficulties may affect independent living skills and quality of life. Yet, we know little about how whole-body movement may distinguish individuals with autism spectrum disorder from individuals with typical development. In this study, kinematic and postural sway data were collected during multiple sessions of videogame play in 39 youth with autism spectrum disorder and 23 age-matched youth with typical development (ages 7–17 years). The youth on the autism spectrum exhibited more variability and more entropy in their movements. Machine learning analysis of the youths’ motor patterns distinguished between the autism spectrum and typically developing groups with high aggregate accuracy (up to 89%), with no single region of the body seeming to drive group differences. Moreover, the machine learning results corresponded to individual differences in performance on standardized motor tasks and measures of autism symptom severity. The machine learning algorithm was also sensitive to age, suggesting that motor challenges in autism may be best characterized as a developmental motor delay rather than an autism-distinct motor profile. Overall, these results reveal that whole-body movement is a distinguishing feature in autism spectrum disorder and that movement atypicalities in autism are present across the body.
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