Balance exercise programs are an effective way to prevent falls in older people. Exercises are mostly focused on controlling the center of mass while reducing the base of support, for example by standing on one leg. Balance control however, also requires adaptive responses that would require a person to either […]
Nerve cells that innervate the biceps muscle become more (or less) excitable depending on the posture of the arm (Mogk et al. 2014). This has been shown by stimulating the motor area of people’s brains (the motor cortex) and measuring the size of responses in the muscles when the arm […]
Scientists publish their most important findings in scientific journals. But who reads those journals? Almost exclusively other scientists. That means that the vast majority of people, who fund the research through their taxes, will never hear about the results even though they might be important for them. Professor Lorimer Moseley […]
Senses such as sight, touch or hearing should tell us how things are – no more and no less, because our actions, and ultimately our survival, depend on them. However, senses cannot afford the luxury of being confused but have to ‘guess’ how things are even when sensory input is […]
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 […]
Regular exercise is well demonstrated to relieve pain in people with chronic pain (Busch et al, 2007) but exactly how exercise helps is not known. A growing body of evidence shows people with chronic pain who are fitter and more physically active experience less pain. Similar associations are apparent in […]
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 […]
Brain zapping, or non-invasive brain stimulation, in all its forms, has hit the mainstream. You can even watch a YouTube video about how to build your very own not-approved-for-human-use transcranial magnetic stimulation machine! Light-heartedness aside, the therapeutic benefits of brain stimulation are regularly highlighted in the news, and the number […]
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 […]
