Informant38

Vibrating shoes that use random noise to amplify subtle signals to the brain could keep stop people unsteady on their feet from losing their balance.

When someone leans or sways to one side, pressure on the soles of the feet increases on that side. Normally the nervous system detects these changes and automatically corrects posture. But some people, particularly the elderly, have trouble picking up these signals and sway much more than normal even when they think they are standing still.

Jim Collins and colleagues at Boston University wondered if such people could benefit from "stochastic resonance" - an effect that makes a weak signal easier to detect when it is superimposed on a background of random noise.