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Exploring Gait Related Changes in Brain Activation in Super Movers

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 5:00 – 7:00 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom
Also presenting in Data Blitz Session 4 - Saturday, March 7, 2026, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm PST, Salon F.

Maya Hoff¹, Joe Verghese², Pierfilippo De Sanctis¹; ¹Albert Einstein College of Medicine, ²Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University

Gait speed is associated with general brain health in aging. While it is common for gait speed to decline with age, about seven percent maintain a fast gait speed well into older age. The neural substrate of so-called super movers, individuals above the age of 80 who walk at speeds comparable to people 30 years younger, are unexplored. The current study uses a novel mobile brain body imaging procedure to measure brain oscillatory activity tied to the gait cycle while individuals classified as super movers (n=16) and controls (n=25) performed a complex gait task. Complexity was introduced by immersing participants in full-field optical flow stimulation designed to destabilize balance during treadmill walking. We predicted that super mover status is associated with a distinct fronto-parietal activation pattern during complex gait. Preliminary data analysis indicated that controls show increased parieto-occipital and sensorimotor activation in mu and beta bands during complex compared to simple walking. In contrast, super movers exhibit overall increased fronto-medial theta power during simple and complex walking coinciding with the pre-swing phase of the gait cycle. Our findings show that groups engage different brain regions and spectral activation patterns in response to visual perturbation designed to destabilize posture. While controls increased activation of the parietal and sensorimotor cortex in complex walking, super movers may exhibit a unique neural signature, relying more heavily on frontal activation in both simple and complex walking.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging