Ting said people typically aren’t diagnosed with balance disorders until they’ve already fallen. Earlier warnings could allow time for interventions like exercise to help people maintain their motor and cognitive function.

In the study, the team tested individuals’ cognitive set-shifting skills, an executive function of that brain that allows us to change behavior between contexts. Then they put subjects on a moving platform and disrupted their balance — what researchers called “perturbations.”

They found people with poorer set-shifting ability also responded more aggressively to the loss of balance. Instead of only activating specific muscles to counter the platform’s shift and restore balance, these people activated opposing muscle groups, and their brain activity was more pronounced than those with better set-shifting skills.

“Their muscle activity is less specific; they're not responding in a way that's specific to the task,” Ting said. With lots of muscles moving, including groups that counteract each other, the participants stiffened their body overall instead of reacting only to the direction of the movement.

“They can't switch contextually, and so they're doing this behavior that helps them not have to guess or not have to actually figure out what's going on,” Ting said, “but ultimately, it's not good for your balance.”

In other words, their brains struggled to shift contexts with motor functions just as they showed reduced ability to shift contexts in thinking tasks.

Scientists have long observed a connection between declining cognitive function and an increased risk of falling down, though the specifics of the link remain foggy. Ting’s lab has published previous papers showing that impaired set shifting is associated with how frequently people have fallen in the past, including those with Parkinson’s disease, but this is the first time they’ve linked it to the potential for balance problems.