Aging, Force, and Feedback: Rethinking Proprioception Through Motor Unit Insights

In this episode, coauthor Mélanie Henry highlights the findings of the newly published study, “Influence of Age and Feedback Modality on the Proprioceptive Sense of Force: Insights from Motor Unit Recordings.”  She discusses how different types of feedback—auditory vs. visual—affect force-reproduction accuracy across age groups. Surprisingly, middle-aged and older adults performed better with auditory feedback, an improvement linked to increased motor unit coherence in the beta band. Tune in to explore how aging influences proprioception, how the brain adapts to different sensory inputs, and what this means for motor control and rehabilitation strategies.

 

Influence of age and feedback modality on the proprioceptive sense of force: insights from motor unit recordings

Mélanie Henry, Abdulkerim Darendeli, Taylor Tvrdy, Sajjad Daneshgar, and Roger M. Enoka

Journal of Neurophysiology 2025 133:4, 1103-1115