Neural Correlates of Single- and Dual-Task Walking in the Real World

Abstract

Recent developments in mobile brain-body imaging (MoBI) technologies have enabled studies of human locomotion where subjects are able to move freely in more ecologically valid scenarios. In this study, MoBI was employed to describe the behavioral and neurophysiological aspects of three different commonly occurring walking conditions in healthy adults. The experimental conditions were self-paced walking, walking while conversing with a friend and lastly walking while texting with a smartphone. We hypothesized that gait performance would decrease with increased cognitive demands and that condition-specific neural activation would involve condition-specific brain areas. Gait kinematics and high density electroencephalography (EEG) were recorded whilst walking around a university campus. Conditions with dual tasks were accompanied by decreased gait performance. Walking while conversing was associated with an increase of theta (θ) and beta (β) neural power in electrodes located over left-frontal and right parietal regions, whereas walking while texting was associated with a decrease of β neural power in a cluster of electrodes over the frontal-premotor and sensorimotor cortices when compared to walking whilst conversing. In conclusion, the behavioral “signatures” of common real-life activities performed outside the laboratory environment were accompanied by differing frequency-specific neural “biomarkers”. The current findings encourage the study of the neural biomarkers of disrupted gait control in neurologically impaired patients.

Alteration of brain dynamics during natural dual-task walking

“…The same study also showed decreased beta power over frontal and central electrodes when walking while performing the Go/NoGo task with respect to single-task walking. A similar decrease in beta band power was demonstrated at frontal, central and parietal electrodes during single-task walking as compared to standing still (Pizzamiglio et al, 2017). The role of beta band activity in attention processes is well established for numerous thalamic and cortical centers of the visual system (Wróbel, 2000 for a review).…”

“…Less consistent patterns for beta modulation were observed in paradigms that involved walking participants. Here, beta power has been observed to increase (Presacco et al, 2011) and sometimes to decrease (Pizzamiglio et al, 2017). Moreover, while walking, a more pronounced increase of beta power has been observed for a secondary motor task condition than an additional secondary cognitive task (Beurskens et al, 2016).…”

“…Irrespective of the cognitive task modality, during CMI, a performance deterioration is usually observed in the cognitive and/or in the motor task (Leone et al, 2017). Focusing on the motor behavior, studies on dual-task walking demonstrated alterations in gait velocity, stride length and stride time (Beurskens et al, 2016;De Sanctis et al, 2014;Malcolm et al, 2015;Patel et al, 2014;Pizzamiglio et al, 2017;Plummer et al, 2015). This suggests that gait parameters vary with attentional resources even in healthy adults with good locomotor and cognitive functions.…”

“…In the frequency domain, several studies showed power spectral density (PSD) parameters to be related to cognitive and/or motor load in stationary dual-task-based studies but not yet in mobile investigations. For the latter, only a few and sometimes contradictory observations have been reported Presacco et al, 2011;Beurskens et al, 2013;Marcar et al, 2014;Pizzamiglio et al, 2017;Peterson & Ferris, 2018).…”

Rationale and methods for a multicenter clinical trial assessing exercise and intensive vascular risk reduction in preventing dementia (rrAD Study)

“…The rrAD study uses a 10m walk dual task (walking with and without distraction) to assess the subject’s gait velocity and ability to perform two simultaneous tasks [75, 76]. Non-distracted gait consists of the average of two timed 10m walk times at normal walking speed.…”