The influence of horizontally rotating sound on standing balance

International audiencePostural control is known to be the result of the integration and processing of various sensory inputs by the central nervous system. Among the various afferent inputs, the role of auditory information in postural regulation has been addressed in relatively few studies, which led to conflicting results. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of a rotating auditory stimulus, delivered by an immersive 3D sound spatialization system, on the standing posture of young subjects. The postural sway of 20 upright, blindfolded subjects was recorded using a force platform. Use of various sound source rotation velocities followed by sudden immobilization of the sound was compared with two control conditions: no sound and a stationary sound source. The experiment showed that subjects reduced their body sway amplitude and velocity in the presence of rotating sound compared with the control conditions. The faster the sound source was rotating, the greater the reduction in subject body sway.Moreover, disruption of subject postural regulation was observed as soon as the sound source was immobilized. These results suggest that auditory information cannot be neglected in postural control, and that it acts as additional information influencing postural regulation

Sound and Posture: an Overview of Recent Findings

International audienceEven if it has been neglected for a long time, the sound and posture domain seemed to arouse an increasing interest in recent years. In the present position paper, we propose to present an overview of our recent findings on this field and to put them in perspective with the literature. We will bring evidence to support the view that spatial cues provided by auditory information can be integrated by human for a better postural control

Pedaling technique enhancement: a comparison between auditive and visual feedbacks

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Spatial Cues Provided by Sound Improve Postural Stabilization: Evidence of a Spatial Auditory Map?

International audienceIt has long been suggested that sound plays a role in the postural control process. Few studies however have explored sound and posture interactions. The present paper focuses on the specific impact of audition on posture, seeking to determine the attributes of sound that may be useful for postural purposes. We investigated the postural sway of young, healthy blindfolded subjects in two experiments involving different static auditory environments. In the first experiment, we compared effect on sway in a simple environment built from three static sound sources in two different rooms: a normal vs. an anechoic room. In the second experiment, the same auditory environment was enriched in various ways, including the ambisonics synthesis of a immersive environment, and subjects stood on two different surfaces: a foam vs. a normal surface. The results of both experiments suggest that the spatial cues provided by sound can be used to improve postural stability. The richer the auditory environment, the better this stabilization. We interpret these results by invoking the " spatial hearing map " theory: listeners build their own mental representation of their surrounding environment, which provides them with spatial landmarks that help them to better stabilize

Synchronizing Gestures with Friction Sounds: Work in Progress

International audienceThis paper presents a work in progress dealing with the sensorimotor relation between auditory perception and graphical movements. An experiment where subjects were asked to synchronize their gestures with synthetic friction sounds is presented. A first qualitative analysis enabled to evaluate the influence of different intrinsic sound parameters on the characteristics of the synchronized gesture. This preliminary experiment provides a formal framework for a wider study which aims to evaluate the relation between audition, vision and gestures

Does visual experience influence arm proprioception and its lateralization? Evidence from passive matching performance in congenitally-blind and sighted adults

In humans, body segments' position and movement can be estimated from multiple senses such as vision and proprioception. It has been suggested that vision and proprioception can influence each other and that upper-limb proprioception is asymmetrical, with proprioception of the non-dominant arm being more accurate and/or precise than proprioception of the dominant arm. However, the mechanisms underlying the lateralization of proprioceptive perception are not yet understood. Here we tested the hypothesis that early visual experience influences the lateralization of arm proprioceptive perception by comparing 8 congenitally-blind and 8 matched, sighted right-handed adults. Their proprioceptive perception was assessed at the elbow and wrist joints of both arms using an ipsilateral passive matching task. Results support and extend the view that proprioceptive precision is better at the non-dominant arm for blindfolded sighted individuals. While this finding was rather systematic across sighted individuals, proprioceptive precision of congenitally-blind individuals was not lateralized as systematically, suggesting that lack of visual experience during ontogenesis influences the lateralization of arm proprioception

Resiliência em Países Frágeis : uma investigação exploratória em curso

Esta investigação começou em 2017 quando o diretor de uma direção de serviços do Joint Research Center, na ECAS em Genebra, convidou o Prof. Carlos Sangreman para um estudo exploratório sobre a resiliência na Guiné-Bissau com o título Context specific risk perception and resilience patterns for individuals and communities (urban/non-urban) – the case of people in Guinea-Bissau. O estudo foi efetuado com base no inquérito cujo formulário se inclui neste Working Paper, deu origem ao artigo junto numa revista internacional e a um tema de doutoramento em curso na Universidade de Aveiro.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Clinical and biological characteristics of cervical neoplasias with FGFR3 mutation

BACKGROUND: We have previously reported activating mutations of the gene coding for the fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3) in invasive cervical carcinoma. To further analyze the role of FGFR3 in cervical tumor progression, we extended our study to screen a total of 75 invasive tumors and 80 cervical intraepithelial neoplasias (40 low-grade and 40 high-grade lesions). RESULTS: Using single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) followed by DNA sequencing, we found FGFR3 mutation (S249C in all cases) in 5% of invasive cervical carcinomas and no mutation in intraepithelial lesions. These results suggest that, unlike in bladder carcinoma, FGFR3 mutation does not or rarely occur in non invasive lesions. Compared to patients with wildtype FGFR3 tumor, patients with S249C FGFR3 mutated tumors were older (mean age 64 vs. 49.4 years, P = 0.02), and were more likely to be associated with a non-16/18 HPV type in their tumor. Gene expression analysis demonstrated that FGFR3 mutated tumors were associated with higher FGFR3b mRNA expression levels compared to wildtype FGFR3 tumors. Supervised analysis of Affymetrix expression data identified a significant number of genes specifically differentially expressed in tumors with respect to FGFR3 mutation status. CONCLUSION: This study suggest that tumors with FGFR3 mutation appear to have distinctive clinical and biological characteristics that may help in defining a population of patients for FGFR3 mutation screening

Mucus Microrheology Measured on Human Bronchial Epithelium Culture

We describe an original method to measure mucus microrheology on human bronchial epithelium culture using optical tweezers. We probed rheology on the whole thickness of mucus above the epithelium and showed that mucus gradually varies in rheological response, from an elastic behavior close to the epithelium to a viscous one far away. Microrheology was also performed on mucus collected on the culture, on ex vivo mucus collected by bronchoscopy, and on another epithelium model. Differences are discussed and are related to mucus heterogeneity, adhesiveness, and collection method