Abstract
Models of human postural control aid in understanding human capabilities and limitations, and may facilitate a reduction in injuries related to loss-of-balance. Such a model is presented here to simulate and interpret the postural control system during spontaneous sway. The human body was represented by a simple inverted pendulum, with the neural controller assumed to be an optimal controller that generates spontaneous sway according to a certain performance criterion. In order to accurately simulate existing experimental data, an optimization procedure was used to specify the set of model parameters. Ten independent simulations were performed for both young and older adults. Aging effects were then analyzed based on the simulation results. The results showed that this model was able to simulate some center-of-pressure measures reported in experimental studies, and indicated potential changes in postural control mechanisms caused by aging.
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