Each participant received 160 perturbations, 25% of which were combined

with a SAS. We varied the direction and magnitude of the perturbations, as well as the prior knowledge of perturbation direction. Perturbation trials were interspersed with SAS-only trials. The SAS accelerated and strengthened postural responses with clear functional benefits (better balance control), but this was only true for responses that protected against falling backwards (i.e. in tibialis anterior and rectus femoris). These muscles also demonstrated RAD001 clinical trial the most common SAS-triggered responses without perturbation. Increasing the perturbation magnitude accelerated postural responses, but again with a larger acceleration for backward perturbations. We conclude that postural responses selleck products to backward and forward perturbations may be processed by different neural circuits, with influence of startle pathways on postural responses to

backward perturbations. These findings give directions for future studies investigating whether deficits in startle pathways may explain the prominent backward instability seen in patients with Parkinson’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy. (C) 2013 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Patients affected by panic disorder with agoraphobia (PDA) often suffer from visuo-spatial disturbances. In the present study, we tested the place-learning abilities in a sample of 31 PDA patients compared to 31 healthy controls (CTR) using the computer-generated AZD3965 chemical structure arena (C-G Arena), a desktop-based computer program developed at the University of Arizona (Jacobs et al 1997, for further detail about the program, see http://web.arizona.edu/similar to arg/data.html). Subjects were asked to search the computer-generated space, over several

trials, for the location of a hidden target. Results showed that control subjects rapidly learned to locate the invisible target and consistently returned to it, while PDA patients were divided in two subgroups: some of them (PDA-A) were as good as controls in place learning, while some others (PDA-B) were unable to learn the correct strategies to find the target. Further analyses revealed that PDA-A patients were significantly younger and affected by panic disorder from less time than PDA-B, indicating that age and duration of illness can be critical factors that influence the place-learning abilities.