Network Analysis of Bodywide Coordination Supporting Suprapostural Dexterity

NCT07060092 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 0055-23-EP
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 48
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Prevailing understandings of movement disorders characterize "broken" movements in a piecewise fashion, for instance, focusing on motor control, muscle tone, posture, or cognition independently of each other. These fractured approaches to movement coordination are blind to the body's functional integrity. Consequently, rehabilitative interventions target the limb or body parts most affected by the disorder, seeking to support the whole body by mending the broken part. However, dexterity is global, functional coordination spanning the whole body. In other words, task completion draws on fundamental interactivity, allowing the body to coordinate various anatomical parts. This coordination may be more vital to healthy movement than individual anatomical parts. Understanding this interactivity is thus paramount to developing novel rehabilitative interventions to prevent falls and improve the quality of life in pathological populations. Studying bodywide coordination for suprapostural dexterity requires innovation in experimental setup and analytical techniques. This project integrates a customizable life-size Trail Making Test with posturography, whole-body movement tracking, eye tracking, and state-of-the-art cascade modeling and network analysis methods to assess functional coordination across the whole body. The experimenters will leverage causal network analyses of multiplicative interactions instrumental in previous studies of whole-body exploratory motor behavior but not yet utilized in studying suprapostural dexterity. Aim 1 will investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity. The experimenters hypothesize that maintaining an upright stance would produce a functional network of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components. The experimenters also hypothesize that participating in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components. Aims 2 will investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity in the face of postural instability. The experimenters hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface when maintaining an upright stance will produce modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing. The experimenters also hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing. This modeling framework offers a new way to understand suprapostural dexterity and its breakdown in various movement disorders in light of recent theoretical developments in cascade modeling and network physiology.

Conditions

Trail Making Task; Balance Board

Keywords

Movement disorder; Postural instability; Fall prevention; Dexterity; Suprapostural control; Motor coordination; Whole-body coordination; Multiplicative interactions; Modular motor networks; Nonlinear movement variability; Trail Making Test (TMT); Posturography; Whole-body kinematics; Eye tracking; Network analysis; Rehabilitation science

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Network structure

  The outcome measure characterizes the directional, weighted network of multiplicative interactions across the human movement system, derived from vector autoregression (VAR) analysis of multifractal fluctuations in center-of-pressure (CoP), center-of-mass (CoM), and 79 anatomical marker displacement series. Each node in the network represents a body segment or anatomical location, and each edge captures the strength and direction of influence in nonlinear fluctuation propagation across time. These networks are modeled individually for each participant and task condition.

  Day 1

Study Arms (3)

Trail Making Task on Stable Surface

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants perform the Trail Making Task while standing on stable force plates.

Behavioral: Trail Making Task

Standing on Unstable Surface

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants maintain upright stance on a balance board placed atop force plates (no cognitive task).

Behavioral: Balance board

Trail Making Task on Unstable Surface

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants perform the Trail Making Task while standing on a balance board, requiring simultaneous postural and cognitive-motor coordination.

Behavioral: Trail Making Task; Behavioral: Balance board

Interventions

Trail Making Task BEHAVIORAL

Participants will perform a modified, life-size version of the Trail Making Test (TMT) while standing upright, either on a stable (force plates) or unstable (balance board) surface. The task involves visually searching for and tracing a sequential path through spatially randomized numerical targets projected onto a large screen using a laser pointer. This dual-task condition simultaneously engages cognitive, visual, and motor planning systems while requiring continuous postural control. The task is designed to elicit suprapostural coordination, capturing the dynamic interplay between postural stability and goal-directed behavior.

Trail Making Task on Stable Surface; Trail Making Task on Unstable Surface

Balance board BEHAVIORAL

Participants will maintain an upright stance on a commercially available balance board positioned atop dual force plates. The unstable surface introduces controlled postural instability, requiring continuous sensorimotor adaptation to preserve balance without external support. This condition is administered alone and in combination with the Trail Making Task to simulate dual-task challenges that more closely resemble real-world balance demands.

Standing on Unstable Surface; Trail Making Task on Unstable Surface

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 19 Years - 35 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• Be able to provide informed consent
• Be able to stand and walk independently without an assistive device

You may not qualify if:

• Self-report any diagnosis of a neurological disease
• Self-report any diagnosis of any limb disabilities, injuries, or disease.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Nebraska: lead

Study Sites (1)

Biomechanics Research Building

Omaha, Nebraska, 68182, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Movement Disorders

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Central Nervous System Diseases; Nervous System Diseases

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NON RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: This is a within-subject, factorial study investigating how suprapostural dexterity emerges from multiplicative interactions across the human movement system under varying task demands and surface stability conditions. Fifty healthy adults will complete a series of upright standing and whole-body Trail Making Test tasks on stable and unstable surfaces while posturography, full-body kinematics, and eye tracking data are recorded and analyzed using multifractal and network modeling techniques.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 25, 2025
• First Posted: July 11, 2025
• Study Start: August 1, 2023
• Primary Completion: July 31, 2024
• Study Completion: July 31, 2024
• Last Updated: July 11, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-06

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)