title: Interference between oculomotor and postural tasks in 7-8-year-old children and adults.
abstract: Several studies in adults having observed the effect of eye movements on postural control provided contradictory results. In the present study, we explored the effect of various oculomotor tasks on postural control and the effect of different postural tasks on eye movements in eleven children (7.8 ± 0.5 years) and nine adults (30.4 ± 6.3 years). To vary the difficulty of the oculomotor task, three conditions were tested: fixation, prosaccades (reactive saccades made toward the target) and antisaccades (voluntary saccades made in the direction opposite to the visual target). To vary the difficulty of postural control, two postural tasks were tested: Standard Romberg (SR) and Tandem Romberg (TR). Postural difficulty did not affect oculomotor behavior, except by lengthening adults' latencies in the prosaccade task. For both groups, postural control was altered in the antisaccade task as compared to fixation and prosaccade tasks. Moreover, a ceiling effect was found in the more complex postural task. This study highlighted a cortical interference between oculomotor and postural control systems.
authors: Laboratoire Vision Action Cognition EA7326, IUPDP, INC, Institut de Psychologie, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 71, Avenue Edouard Vaillant, Boulogne-Billancourt, 92774, France. agathe.legrand@parisdescartes.fr.
authors: Agathe
authors: A
authors: Legrand
authors: Laboratoire Vision Action Cognition EA7326, IUPDP, INC, Institut de Psychologie, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 71, Avenue Edouard Vaillant, Boulogne-Billancourt, 92774, France.|Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.
authors: Karine
authors: K
authors: Doré Mazars
authors: Laboratoire Vision Action Cognition EA7326, IUPDP, INC, Institut de Psychologie, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 71, Avenue Edouard Vaillant, Boulogne-Billancourt, 92774, France.
authors: Christelle
authors: C
authors: Lemoine
authors: UJF-Grenoble 1/CNRS/TIMC-IMAG UMR 5525, Grenoble, 38041, France.
authors: Vincent
authors: V
authors: Nougier
authors: UJF-Grenoble 1/CNRS/TIMC-IMAG UMR 5525, Grenoble, 38041, France.
authors: Isabelle
authors: I
authors: Olivier
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D004856:Postural Balance / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adults; Antisaccades; Children; Dual-task; Postural control; Prosaccades