Investigating cerebellar control in slow gait adaptations: Insights from predictive simulations of split-belt walking

Abstract

BackgroundDuring split-belt treadmill walking, neurotypical humans exhibit adaptations characterized by a gradual decrease in step length asymmetry (SLA) toward or beyond symmetry, whereas individuals with cerebellar damage do not show these motor adaptations. Neuromusculoskeletal simulations may help to better understand individual aspects of the underlying neural control, but are currently incapable of predicting adaptations to the continuous perturbations imposed by split-belt walking. MethodsWe extend a spinal reflex model with a biologically inspired model of the cerebellum, which enables error-based motor adaptation by modulating spinal control parameters in response to mismatches between a continuously updated internal prediction and actual motor outcomes. In this work, the cerebellum modulates only a single spinal control parameter, the timing of swing initiation in each leg, which allows examining its isolated contribution to gait adaptation as all other reflex pathways are held constant. We created 80 s predictive simulations of the model walking on a split-belt treadmill with a 2:1 belt-speed ratio, and compared predicted spatiotemporal parameters and kinematics to the reflex-only model and literature. ResultsThe reflex-only model could walk on the split-belt treadmill, but showed no step length adaptations. In contrast, the extended model adapted SLA from an initial asymmetric value toward symmetry or beyond, following an exponential time course similar to that observed in experiments. The model could adapt at varying rates and converge to different asymmetry levels. We found that, in simulation, SLA adaptation during split-belt walking is possible without changes in reflex gains, by adapting the timing of swing initiation. The modulation of timing alone also predicted the experimentally observed exponential adaptation in the temporal domain, but only a linear change in the spatial domain, indicating that additional control mechanisms are likely required to reproduce the full spatial adaptation observed in split-belt walking. ConclusionWe propose a computational model of the cerebellum which, when integrated into a spinal reflex model, autonomously drives feedforward gait adaptations during split-belt walking. This advances the current state of predictive simulations and may eventually help to better understand specific adaptation processes. The modular framework can be extended to test different hypotheses about motor control and adaptation during continuous perturbation tasks.