Walking while learning to make brain health assessments more reliable

Tatiana Silva

Fundação D. Anna Sommer Champalimaud e Dr. Carlos Montez Champalimaud, Portugal

A simple learning task based on blinking in response to a cue helps researchers study how the brain learns and stores memories. It may also reveal changes associated with brain injury, psychiatric conditions, and neurological disease. However, results can vary considerably between individuals, limiting the task’s usefulness in clinical practice. This project will test whether performing the task while walking can make its results more consistent.

Evidence from animal studies suggests that movement during learning may stabilise responses. To determine whether the same principle applies to humans, the researchers will compare how consistently participants learn when they perform the task while standing still or walking on a treadmill. The project brings together expertise in neuroscience, clinical research, and physiotherapy to help translate these findings into future health applications.

If walking improves the reliability of the task, it could provide a simple, low-cost, and non-invasive approach to assessing brain function. More consistent measurements could support earlier detection of brain dysfunction, more reliable monitoring of disease progression, and more personalised rehabilitation strategies.

Locomotor Intervention to Enhance Eyeblink Conditioning (EBC) as a Quantitative Neurobehavioral Biomarker in Humans

€80.000,00