CI MED Research Tracks the ‘Secret Sauce’ of Tai Chi’s Effect on Balance in Aging

Scientists at Carle Illinois College of Medicine have uncovered clues on how aging and practicing the ancient exercise of Tai Chi affect the brain-muscle connection while maintaining balance. Their work takes an innovative technology-based approach to identifying the ‘secret sauce’ behind Tai Chi’s mind-body benefits and applying those discoveries to other forms of exercise to improve health.   

“What we hope to do is get a better sense of the adaptations that might be arising with increased Tai Chi practice, trying to get a better sense for how much practice is needed to start seeing significant changes, and then trying to get a better handle on the changes that might be arising that are beneficial relative to typical aging,” said CI MED Teaching Professor Manuel Hernandez, who leads the research.

Tai Chi incorporates slow, intentional movements with an emphasis on mindfulness, coupled with concentration or meditation. Previous studies have suggested that Tai Chi practice may improve balance in older adults and people with Parkinson’s disease.

“We know that there are some direct associations with improved balance, improved strength. But we’re not sure what the elements are that are the most crucial, and how do you translate that to different populations,” Hernandez said.

Tech-powered Research

In first-of-its-kind research, Hernandez and his team used virtual reality (VR) and electroencephalography (EEG) to measure and compare electrical signals in the brain and lower-limb muscles of healthy groups of younger adults, older adults, and older adults who practice Tai Chi while standing still in a virtual environment.

Unexpected insight

“Using the virtual reality scenario, what we were initially envisioning is that maybe we won’t see much of a difference when we’re engaged in really simple tasks. Surprisingly, it was really in this control task, when you’re standing steady in the virtual scenario, that we were already able to see a lot of marked changes,” Hernandez said.

“What it indicates is that from an essentially innocuous task, you’re already able to get some interesting differences [between groups] when you’re put in a novel environment. There are already significant changes in the way your brain is communicating with your muscles.”

Manuel Hernandez, CI MED Teaching Professor

Using VR headsets and scenarios that simulate challenging conditions such as uneven ground or standing on the edge of a cliff, the research team studied how older adults who practice Tai Chi adapted to maintain balance, compared to healthy young people and older adults who don’t practice Tai Chi.  

“It was in the more challenging conditions that we started seeing what we expected… older individuals were behaving a little bit differently from the young. Then with the Tai Chi practice group, using strategies more similar to younger adults” he said.

The study found that aging can be accompanied by a loss of isometric ankle strategy – the ability to contract the ankle by applying pressure against resistance, such as the floor, to maintain upright balance. Findings suggest that practicing structured movements such as those in Tai Chi may help older adults compensate for this loss.  

The research doesn’t point to a single ‘break’ in the conversation between mind and body in maintaining balance. Instead, it reveals how older adults adapt to the small changes that accumulate over time, requiring our brains and bodies to shift strategies to maintain posture.

Hernandez said further studies are needed to determine which other exercise methods might offer the same benefits, and how much structured movement exercise is required to improve balance and reduce fall risk.

Editor’s notes:

Manuel Hernandez co-directs the Musculoskeletal & Integumentary course at CI MED, is a medical education facilitator, and serves on the teaching faculty in the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences. He is also director of the Mobility and Fall Prevention Research Laboratory in the Department of Health & Kinesiology within the College of Applied Health Sciences.
Co-authors on the study include CI MED and Mechanical Science and Engineering Professor Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and U. of I. alumnus Yang Hu of the Department of Kinesiology, San Jose State University. Their study, “Exploration of the effects of Tai Chi practice on lower limb corticomuscular coherence during balance-demanding virtual reality conditions in older adults,” is published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1554000
This work was funded in part by a grant from JUMP Arches through the Health Care Engineering System Center.

This article was written by Beth Hart. Photography and video content was produced by Virgil Ward.