Application of intermittent galvanic vestibular stimulation reveals age-related constraints in the multisensory reweighting of posture

• Intermittent Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS) was applied during stance.
• Sensory reweighting was evoked by perturbing proprioception and vision.
• Intermittent GVS reduced excessive sway evoked by the multisensory perturbation.
• Intermittent GVS had no stabilizing effect in elderly's sway.
• Intermittent GVS increases sensory reliance on the vestibular system.

In this study we examined the effects of intermittent short-duration Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS) during a multisensory perturbation of posture in young and elderly adults. Twelve young (24.91 ± 6.44 years) and eleven elderly (74.8 ± 6.42 years) participants stood upright under two task conditions: (a) quiet standing and (b) standing while receiving pseudo-randomly presented bipolar 2 s GVS pulses. In both conditions, sensory reweighting was evoked by visual surround oscillations (20 cm, 0.3 Hz) and Achilles tendon vibration (3 mm, 80 Hz), concurrently delivered during the middle 60 s of standing. Intermittent GVS decreased the excessive postural sway induced by the concurrent visual and proprioceptive perturbation in young but not in elderly participants. It is suggested that GVS increases sensory reliance on the vestibular system while elderly adults are less able to exploit this stimulation in order to reduce the destabilizing effect of the multisensory perturbation on their posture.