Grant: Discovery Launch Supplement

In Canada, more than 30% of adults over 65 suffer a fall each year. These falls can be debilitating, costly, and damaging to quality of life. They remain the leading cause of injury-related death in this age group. By 2030, 23% of Canadians will be over 65, therefore there is an urgent need to reduce falls in the senior population. Understanding the cause of falls is essential to preventing them. For this reason, I will investigate the neural mechanisms involved in balance and how they change with age, and I will explore ways to improve balance in older adults. I am particularly interested in the effect attentional focus has on postural stability, because we have seen that concentrating on an external cue instead of on postural control improves stability. I will manipulate participants' attentional focus while I challenge their balance to demonstrate this effect because, although standing and walking balance have been studied, examining the neural control of balance is an emerging area of research. This project will use novel brain imaging techniques to explore age-related changes to the neural control of balance using high-density electroencephalography (EEG) to show how attentional focus influences neural responses to balance disruptions in young and older adults as they walk. This project will reveal which brain areas are involved in balance, how electrocortical activity in those areas change with age, and lay the foundation for the development of new ways to improve balance in the elderly population.