Ricerc@Sapienza

Monkey neurophysiology and human neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that passive viewing of optic flow stimuli activates a cortical network of temporal, parietal, insular, and cingulate visual motion regions. Here, we tested whether the human visual motion areas involved in processing optic flow signals simulating self-motion are also activated by active lower limb movements, and hence are likely involved in guiding human locomotion. To this aim, we used a combined approach of task-evoked activity and resting-state functional connectivity by fMRI.

The timing and size of repetitive, internally generated, automatic sequences of movements are particularly affected in Parkinson’s disease. The most evident consequence of this deficit is the alteration of gait patterns, with a loss of rhythmicity, shorter steps, slower walking, and trunk instability. Several studies have highlighted a potential benefit of listening to music on the normalization of walking patterns. However, most of these studies investigated the effect of a single specific music.