Side dominance and eye patches obscuring half of the visual field do not affect walking kinematics

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 6189 - 12
• Main Authors: Négyesi, János, Kovács, Bálint, Petró, Bálint, Salman, Diane Nabil, Khandoker, Ahsan, Katona, Péter, Moussa, Mostafa Mohamed, Hortobágyi, Tibor, Rácz, Kristóf, Pálya, Zsófia, Grand, László, Kiss, Rita Mária, Nagatomi, Ryoichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20.02.2025; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/378/2632; 639/166/985; Adult; Ankle; Biomechanical Phenomena; Dominance; Electromyography; Eye; Female; Functional Laterality - physiology; Gait; Gait - physiology; Hand eye coordination; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Kinematics; laterality; Leg; Locomotion; Male; Motion capture; Motor task performance; multidisciplinary; Muscle contraction; Muscle, Skeletal - physiology; Muscles; Neuromuscular system; Patching; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sensorimotor integration; Vision; Visual field; Visual Fields - physiology; Walking; Walking - physiology; Young Adult; Electromyography; Motion capture; Gait; Vision; laterality
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-90936-x

Vision plays a fundamental role in the control of human locomotion, including walking gait. Given that side-dominance is associated with differences in motor control, the present study aimed to determine if patches obscuring half of the visual field affect left- and right-side dominant individuals’ gait kinematics and accompanying leg muscle activation differently. Healthy right- ( n  = 15, age = 28.2 ± 5.5 years) and left-side ( n  = 9, age = 27.9 ± 5.8 years) dominant participants performed 10 min of walking trials on a treadmill at a self-selected speed with 5 min of rest between three randomized trials, i.e., wearing clear glasses or glasses with left-or right half-field eye patching. In addition to a set of spatiotemporal and kinematic gait parameters, the average activity during the separated gait cycle phases, and the start and end of muscle activation in % of the gait cycle were calculated from five muscles in three muscle groups. Our results indicate that gait kinematics of left- and right-side dominant participants were similar both in their dominant and non-dominant legs, regardless of half-field eye patching condition. On the other hand, inter-group differences were found in selected kinematic variables. For instance, in addition to larger but less variable step width, our results suggest larger ankle and knee ROM in right- vs. left-sided participants. Furthermore, medial gastrocnemius and biceps femoris muscle activation showed selected differences at certain phases of the gait cycle between participants’ dominant and non-dominant legs. However, it was also unaffected by the half-field eye patching condition. Moreover, the endpoint of medial gastrocnemius activation was affected by side-dominance, i.e., its activation ended earlier in the non-dominant leg of right- as compared to left-side dominant participants. Our results suggest no major differences in walking gait kinematics and accompanying muscle activation between half-field eye patching conditions in healthy adults; nevertheless, side-dominance may affect biomechanical and neuromuscular control strategies during walking gait.