Effect of cost gradient on initiating walking adaptation

People can adapt their gait to reduce their metabolic cost of walking in new situations, such as when wearing an exoskeleton. However, people do not always spontaneously adapt—they require specific kinds of forced or self-exploration. This is because in a new situation the nervous system must first determine whether adaptation is beneficial, and may rely on certain features of the new situation to determine this. We tested whether the cost gradient may be that feature. We found that while participants can adapt, steeper gradients alone are insufficient to initiate adaptation. I'll conclude the talk with some thoughts on other features that may be necessary to initiate adaptation.

Dr. Surabhi Simha