Research Article Assessment of Startle Response and Its Prepulse Inhibition Using Posturography: Pilot Study Jacek PolechoNski, 1 Grzegorz Juras, 1 Kajetan SBomka, 1 Janusz BBaszczyk, 1,2 Andrzej MaBecki, 1 and Agnieszka Nawrocka 1 1 Te Jerzy Kukuczka Academy of Physical Education in Katowice, Katowice, Poland 2 Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Warsaw, Poland Correspondence should be addressed to Agnieszka Nawrocka; a.nawrocka@awf.katowice.pl Received 21 January 2016; Accepted 26 April 2016 Academic Editor: Margaret A. Niznikiewicz Copyright © 2016 Jacek Polecho´ nski et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Purpose. Te aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of using static posturography in the assessment of sensorimotor gating. Subjects and Methods. Fourteen subjects took part in the experiment. Te inhibitory mechanisms of startle refex were used as the measure of sensorimotor gating. It was evoked by a strong acoustic stimulus (106 dB SPL, 40 ms) which was preceded by the weaker similar signal (80 dB SPL, 20 ms). A stabilographic platform was used to measure sensorimotor gating. Results. Results of static posturography show that the postural sway caused by the reaction to a strong acoustic stimulus is signifcantly smaller when this stimulus is preceded by the signal of lower intensity (prepulse). Such assessment is only possible in eyes open conditions. Conclusions. Static posturography can be simple and efective method used for diagnosis of sensorimotor gating in humans. 1. Introduction Sudden and strong acoustic signal causes orienting response prior to which a specifc motor reaction can be observed. Tis response is called acoustic startle refex (ASR) and can be decreased by prepulse inhibition (PPI), when a slight stimulus is previously generated. PPI is currently perceived as the mea- sure of sensorimotor gating, being the ability of the nervous system to flter irrelevant information [1]. Assessment of sensorimotor gating is useful especially in neurological and psychiatric research. A lot of studies have shown that PPI is disturbed in many diseases and disorders, for example, schizophrenia [2–5], Alzheimer’s disease [6], Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) [7], Parkinson’s disease [8], generalized dystonia [9], and subcategory of autism, Asperger syndrome [10]. Startle response (startle refex) is usually recorded using electromyography (EMG) and concerns the assessment of orbicularis oculi muscle activation [11–14]. It might be prob- lematic, for example, in case of excessive blinking which can be an efect of nervous hyperactivity or motor tics. Terefore, the recording activity of and muscles (masseter, sternocleido- mastoid, biceps brachii, abductor pollicis brevis) also is used in the assessment of startle refex, [9, 15, 16]. Brown et al. [17] examined startle response caused by acoustic stimulus on leg muscles (tibialis anterior, soleus). However, such measure- ments are complicated and time-consuming. Experiments conducted on animals have shown that special force plat- forms can be used for assessment of startle response [18, 19]. Te aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of using the static posturography for assessment of the sensori- motor gating and startle refex in human. Te potential results of this study could be useful in diagnosis of patients with neuronal and psychological disorders. 2. Material and Methods Studies have been approved by the Bioethical Commission of the Jerzy Kukuczka Academy of Physical Education in Katowice. Fourteen male students participated in the study (age 21.9 ± 1.1 years, height 182.2 ± 8.9 cm, and weight Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2016, Article ID 8597185, 5 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/8597185