For decades, there has been a consensus amongst scientists and practitioners that one of the ways people become stronger after resistance training is that their muscles become bigger. This increase in muscle size is termed muscle hypertrophy. Over the past 3 years, however, Jeremy Loenneke’s research group at the University […]
To accurately move there is a need for proprioception, the sense of where our limbs are in space. Although we know much about how proprioceptive signals arise in the periphery, less is known about how these signals are integrated so that they can be understood in the spatial co-ordinates of the […]
Muscle strength and other measures of physical function decline with age (e.g., Kenny et al. 2013). To overcome these age-related decrements in physical function, physical exercise is recommended (e.g. American College of Sports Medicine 2009; Australian Government Department of Health 2005). Two types of exercise that improve physical function in older adults […]
Proprioception, our ‘sixth sense’, underlies our innate ability to localise our body parts in space and to know the forces, angles and movements at our joints (Proske & Gandevia, 2012). This ‘sense’ allows us to interact with our environment. For example, reaching for a cup of water requires knowledge of the exact spatial […]
Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) is a novel technique used to study muscle architecture, and is currently being used for NeuRA’s motor impairment research. In his review paper, Damon et al. [1] comprehensively describes the details of the technique. In this blog, we cover some key elements to this […]
A progressive reduction in limb muscle mass is characteristic of advancing age, usually referred to as sarcopenia (Rosenberg, 1997). This loss of muscle mass and strength is likely to contribute to the general loss of mobility and risk of falling, a major concern for the elderly. These problems have been […]
At the second annual Motor Impairment Program meeting held at Neuroscience Research Australia at the end of last year, we were lucky to have guest speaker, Professor David Vaux from the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research (Melbourne, Australia) come up to talk to us about some general problems […]
In a recent interview, Simon Gandevia talks about a recently published review article by Stephen Lord, Kim Delbaere and himself which examined how motor impairments become more prevalent with ageing and how careful physiological measurement and appropriate interventions offer a way to maximise health across the life span. PUBLICATION: Lord SR, […]
Members of the Motor Impairment Research Program conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess whether step training can improve physical and neuropsychological measures associated with falls in people with multiple sclerosis (MS). 50 people with MS participated in the trial in which intervention group participants (n = 28) performed step […]
Proprioception is the sense of the body’s own actions in space. Proprioception is disrupted in many clinical conditions such as dystonia, Parkinson’s disease and stroke. This disruption affects the ability of these individuals to produce “normal” movements. For years different paradigms have been used by researchers to examine proprioception. Dr. Lee […]
