Generalization of motor learning in older adults and its impact on walking

Quality of life as people age is heavily dependent on maintaining mobility. This research evaluates how walking patterns learned in one situation can generalize to another situation and how this ability changes with age. This is a significant issue for people with brain or body injuries that affect walking because rehabilitation techniques typically include training on treadmills or exoskeletons. The investigator will assess how walking patterns learned on a treadmill generalize to walking on the ground and whether that ability is modifiable, changes with age, and interacts with attentional demands. One broader impact of the work lies in its potential to improve rehabilitation tools, enhance mobility and reduce the risk of falls in the elderly. In addition, the project extends a Master’s-to-Ph.D. bridge program (MS2PhD BRIDGE) that increases participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields, ultimately fostering a diverse and skilled future workforce in cognitive science and bioengineering. This research identifies factors regulating the generalization of walking patterns in older adults, based on the hypothesis that aging increases generalization of motor learning due to reduced sensitivity to contextual cues and greater reliance on attentional resources. Researchers will compare electromyographic (EMG) changes and generalization of newly learned walking patterns during unassisted walking overground between young and older adults. The study employs innovative methods, such as motorized shoes and split-belt treadmills, to manipulate sensory and attentional demands. The findings are expected to reveal distinct age-specific contributions of subcortical vs. conscious strategies for generalization, advancing theoretical models of motor learning generalization and informing the design of age-specific rehabilitation interventions. This project was funded in part by support from the Perception Action and Cognition Program, Developmental Sciences Program, and Science of Learning and Augmented Intelligence Program in the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences and by the Disability and Rehabilitation Engineering Program in the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.