Neuroscience Letters 492 (2011) 29–32 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Neuroscience Letters journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neulet Influence of gymnastics training on the development of postural control Claudia Garcia a , José Angelo Barela a,b , André Rocha Viana a , Ana Maria Forti Barela a,b,∗ a Movement Analysis Laboratory, Institute of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences, Cruzeiro do Sul University, São Paulo, SP, Brazil b Human Movement Sciences Graduate Program, Institute of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences, Cruzeiro do Sul University, São Paulo, SP, Brazil article info Article history: Received 26 August 2010 Received in revised form 10 December 2010 Accepted 20 January 2011 Keywords: Children Body sway Visual information Motor development Motor control abstract This study investigated the influence of gymnastics training on the postural control of children with and without the use of visual information. Two age groups, aged 5–7 and 9–11 years old, of gymnasts and nongymnasts were asked to maintain an upright and quiet stance on a force platform with eyes open (EO) and eyes closed (EC) for 30 s. Area of the stabilogram (AOS) and mean velocity of the center of pressure (COP) in anterior–posterior (AP) and medial–lateral (ML) directions were calculated and used to investigate the effects of gymnastics training, age, and visual information. Younger gymnasts presented greater postural control compared to younger nongymnasts while visual information did not improve postural control in younger nongymnasts. Younger gymnasts displayed improved postural control with EO compared to EC. The mean velocity of the COP in the ML direction was: less for younger gymnasts than younger nongymnasts with EO. These results suggest that gymnastics training promotes improvements in postural control of younger children only, which results from their use of visual information when available. © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Postural control is essential when performing most activity [22] and it results from an interaction between sensory information and motor action [9], with visual, vestibular, and somatosen- sory systems as the main sources of sensory information [11]. Postural control is gained over the first years of life with, for instance, young children exhibiting a greater magnitude of postural sway than adults during a quiet standing position [12,15,16,21,24]. Moreover, adult-like performance in children’s postural control is task-dependent and might vary due to sensory manipulation. For example, Taguchi and Tada reported that with eyes open (EO), chil- dren aged 9–12 years of age presented performance of postural control similar to adults [20]. On the other hand, these authors found that with eyes closed (EC), only children 12–15 years of age were similar to adults. However, as visual, vestibular, and somatosensory cues are manipulated, postural control might differ from adults and 14–15-year olds [8]. Developmental postural control changes have been suggested to be a result of how children integrate sensory information into motor action to achieve or maintain a desired postural orientation [2]. Recent studies not only have shown that children before 12 years of age use sensory information different from adults to main- tain a quiet stance [12], but also that they do not compensate for ∗ Corresponding author at: Instituto de Ciências da Atividade Física e Esporte, Universidade Cruzeiro do Sul, Rua Galvão Bueno, 868, 13 ◦ andar, Bloco B, São Paulo, SP 01506-000, Brazil. Tel.: +55 11 3385 3103; fax: +55 11 3385 3003. E-mail address: ana.barela@cruzeirodosul.edu.br (A.M.F. Barela). sensory cue quality [7] and magnitude changes [17] as adults do. Based upon these recent empirical results and assuming the intri- cate relationship between sensory information and motor action in postural control [9] and, specifically, in postural control devel- opment, it was hypothesized that the use of sensory information could be modified in children who practice a physical exercise that emphasizes body orientation and equilibrium. Gymnastics requires fine postural control and both postural orientation and equilibrium, which are two behavioral goals of the postural control system [9], that must be constantly fulfilled. Humans need to correct and maintain body segments in relation to each other and the environment (postural orientation) and to balance all of the forces acting on these segments (postural equi- librium) in order to achieve and maintain a desired posture. Most gymnastic movements require these two postural control goals under extremely demanding conditions. Since postural orientation and equilibrium depend on an intricate coupling between sen- sory information and motor activity [9], gymnastic training could improve postural control performance. Postural control performance of adult gymnasts has been inves- tigated and compared with adult nongymnasts using various physical exercises [1,3,6,22,23]. In general, adult gymnasts present better performance of postural control than adult nongymnasts during specific conditions such as the unipedal stance [1,23]. Regarding the use of specific sensory cues to postural control, few studies had demonstrated that adult gymnasts were more influ- enced by vision during an upright stance than adult nongymnasts that practiced other physical exercises. Additionally, these stud- 0304-3940/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2011.01.047