We are pleased to announce that Alex Liu, a Balance Center Trainee supervised by Dr. Blouin, has successfully defended his thesis earlier this week. As part of the Sensorimotor Physiology Laboratory, his thesis focused on "Assessing lower limb proprioception with a novel mechatronics device."
Alex developed an innovative proprioception test that measures how people perceive and discriminate stance width adjustments during standing balance. His research revealed proprioception thresholds that were more than 10-fold lower than previous studies that used isolated joint movements or restricted participants movement. The results further suggest that sway and load bearing during standing balance may enhance sensory acuity and alter decision making, opening avenues for future research.
These findings highlight the importance of testing proprioception during functional tasks like standing and support the use of this test as a valuable tool for both research and clinical applications.
The full thesis abstract and event details can be found here.
