The Promise of Stochastic Resonance in Falls Prevention

Abstract

Multisensory integration is essential for maintenance of motor and cognitive abilities, thereby ensuring normal function and personal autonomy. Balance control is challenged during senescence or in motor disorders, leading to potential falls. Increased uncertainty in sensory signals is caused by a number of factors including noise, defined as a random and persistent disturbance that reduces the clarity of information. Counter-intuitively, noise can be beneficial in some conditions. Stochastic resonance is a mechanism whereby a particular level of noise actually enhances the response of non-linear systems to weak sensory signals. Here we review the effects of stochastic resonance on sensory modalities and systems directly involved in balance control. We highlight its potential for improving sensorimotor performance as well as cognitive and autonomic functions. These promising results demonstrate that stochastic resonance represents a flexible and non-invasive technique that can be applied to different modalities simultaneously. Finally we point out its benefits for a variety of scenarios including in ambulant elderly, skilled movements, sports and to patients with sensorimotor or autonomic dysfunctions.

Exercise of Dynamic Stability in the Presence of Perturbations Elicit Fast Improvements of Simulated Fall Recovery and Strength in Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…It has been shown that the presence of perturbations and surface irregularities leads to increased muscle activation, which may effectively stimulate strength gains over time (Munoz-Martel et al, 2019 ). Furthermore, there is evidence that the presence of fluctuations and disturbances in the neural processing of sensory inputs to motor outputs can improve motor behavior (Faisal et al, 2008 ; Sejdić and Lipsitz, 2013 ) and balance performance (Priplata et al, 2003 ; Aboutorabi et al, 2018 ; White et al, 2019 ), and may facilitate motor learning and adaptation (Faisal et al, 2008 ; Van Hooren et al, 2019 ). The results of this intervention showed that after 14 weeks of dynamic stability training in the presence of perturbations by unstable surfaces, both strength and balance recovery performance were significantly improved.…”

Exploring $Bona~Fide$ Optimal Noise for Bayesian Parameter Estimation

“…These approximate PDFsf o η implies a bona fide random noise, rather than a constant bias. Moreover, substituting the obtained approximate optimal noise PDFsf o η into (17), the corresponding MSE values of R NE (x) are reduced to 0.0448, 0.0267 and 0.0536, as listed in Table 1, which are almost equal to the corresponding MSEs achieved by the MMSE estimatorθ ms (x).…”

“…From (34), we deduce that R NE in (17) is a monotonically decreasing function of the sensor number M , when the observation data x and the added noise are given. Furthermore, for a sufficiently large number M → ∞, the MSE R NE in (17) can be simplified as…”

“…Then the term stochastic resonance was initially coined to describe the possible mechanism for maximizing the response of a bistable system to a small periodic force by optimizing the noise intensity to a non-zero level [6]. Stochastic resonance attracted much attention in physics and biology [7]- [17] soon afterwards. Gammaitoni [1] first pointed out that stochastic resonance, far from being limited to a resonant phenomenon, can also be interpreted as a special case of dithering and is related to the notion of noise-induced threshold crossings.…”

Development and Validation of Wearable Inertial Sensor System for Postural Sway Analysis

“…Stochastic resonance is one such phenomenon in which white noise is introduced to boost a subthreshold signal to cross a receptor's sensory threshold; therefore, improving the system's sensitivity to detect the subthreshold proprioceptive information (Nobusako et al, 2018). Stochastic resonance can be defined as adding a weak input signal of noise to an already weak signal resulting in a stronger resultant signal that can surpass the sensory threshold of a neuron's receptor (White, Babič, Trenado, Johannsen, & Goswami, 2019). This can allow useful information to pass to the central nervous system and allow for an appropriate response and balance restoration.…”