We are pleased to announce that Josh Donald, under the supervision of Dr. Mark Carpenter in the Neural Control of Posture and Movement Lab, has successfully defended his master’s thesis titled "Peripheral and central vestibular contributions to perception of rotation in healthy aging".
Using a custom-built rotating platform to stimulate the vestibular system, Josh’s thesis explored how the perception of suprathreshold rotation changes with healthy aging. His approach allowed for the direct measurement of perceptual responses to rotation and offered a new perspective for comparing results from conventional clinical vestibular assessments, an area where current literature shows inconsistent findings.
In the study, healthy older (>60 years old) and young adults stood on a rotating platform with their eyes closed and tracked the platform motion using a rotary dial. Results revealed that older adults had significantly more difficulty tracking the rotation and maintaining accurate timing compared to their younger counterparts. Interestingly, results from standard clinical vestibular tests showed little to no age-related differences and were not correlated with participant’s performance on the perceptual rotation task.
Josh’s findings suggest that suprathreshold paradigms, such as this rotation perception task, could provide valuable insight into age-related vestibular decline, offering information that standard clinical tests may overlook. He proposes that future research using this platform may help detect subtle vestibular impairments in older adults, as well as in vestibular patients, individuals with traumatic brain injuries, or those suffering from anxiety-related balance disorders.
For more information, access the full thesis here.
