Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jul 17:17:1197142.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1197142. eCollection 2023.

Adaptation strategies and neurophysiological response in early-stage Parkinson's disease: BioVRSea approach

Deborah Jacob #  1 , Lorena Guerrini #  1   2 , Federica Pescaglia  1   3 , Simona Pierucci  4 , Carmine Gelormini  5 , Vincenzo Minutolo  2 , Antonio Fratini  6 , Giorgio Di Lorenzo  7   8 , Hannes Petersen  9 , Paolo Gargiulo  1   10
Affiliations

Adaptation strategies and neurophysiological response in early-stage Parkinson's disease: BioVRSea approach

Deborah Jacob et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Abstract

Introduction: There is accumulating evidence that many pathological conditions affecting human balance are consequence of postural control (PC) failure or overstimulation such as in motion sickness. Our research shows the potential of using the response to a complex postural control task to assess patients with early-stage Parkinson's Disease (PD).

Methods: We developed a unique measurement model, where the PC task is triggered by a moving platform in a virtual reality environment while simultaneously recording EEG, EMG and CoP signals. This novel paradigm of assessment is called BioVRSea. We studied the interplay between biosignals and their differences in healthy subjects and with early-stage PD.

Results: Despite the limited number of subjects (29 healthy and nine PD) the results of our work show significant differences in several biosignals features, demonstrating that the combined output of posturography, muscle activation and cortical response is capable of distinguishing healthy from pathological.

Discussion: The differences measured following the end of the platform movement are remarkable, as the induced sway is different between the two groups and triggers statistically relevant cortical activities in α and θ bands. This is a first important step to develop a multi-metric signature able to quantify PC and distinguish healthy from pathological response.

Keywords: BioVRSea; balance control; early-stage Parkinson's disease; postural control; quantitative neurophysiology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Symptoms and stages before-after Parkinson's diagnosis.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Quantitative and qualitative aspects in Parkinson's Disease diagnosis (Maffoni et al., 2017).
Figure 3
Figure 3
ASP bands analysis in different studies (Neufeld et al., ; Sinanović et al., ; Bosboom et al., ; Han et al., ; Chu et al., 2021).
Figure 4
Figure 4
BioVRSea experimental setup.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Ellipse areas comparison between Parkinson and healthy subjects in PRE-POST phases.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Mediolateral Complexity Index of healthy (blue) and Parkinson (orange) groups.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Absolute PSD bands analysis in Parkinson's vs. healthy cohort for theta and alpha frequency band.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Agliardi C., Meloni M., Rosa Guerini F., Zanzottera M., Bolognesi E., Baglio F., et al. . (2021). Oligomeric α-syn and snare complex proteins in peripheral extracellular vesicles of neural origin are biomarkers for Parkinson's disease. Neurobiol. Dis. 148, 105185. 10.1016/j.nbd.2020.105185 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aubonnet R., Shoykhet A., Jacob D., Lorenzo G. D., Petersen H., Gargiulo P. (2022). Postural control paradigm (biovrsea): towards a neurophysiological signature. Physiol. Meas. 43, 115002. 10.1088/1361-6579/ac9c43 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baars B. J., Gage N. M. (2010). Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness: Introduction To Cognitive Neuroscience. Cambridge MA: Academic Press. 10.1016/B978-0-12-375070-9.00008-5 - DOI
    1. Barollo F., Friḥriksdóttir R., Edmunds K. J., Karlsson G. H., Svansson H. ,°, et al. . (2020). Postural control adaptation and habituation during vibratory proprioceptive stimulation: an hd-eeg investigation of cortical recruitment and kinematics. IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabilitat. Eng. 28, 1381–1388. 10.1109/TNSRE.2020.2988585 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Berg D., Godau J., Walter U. (2008). Transcranial sonography in movement disorders. Lancet Neurol. 7, 1044–1055. 10.1016/S1474-4422(08)70239-4 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources