Research on the ageing brain wins Best Poster Award at IEEE conference 

Researchers at Reykjavik University and the University of Rome Tor Vergata have received the Best Poster Award at IEEE MetroXRAINE 2026 in Chemnitz, Germany, earlier this month. The poster looks at how brain activity differs with age when people keep their balance in virtual reality. 

The poster is titled Age-Related Modulation of EEG Microstate Temporal Dynamics in an Immersive Virtual Reality Paradigm. The authors are Carmine Gelormini, Federica Pescaglia, Ida Maruotto, Halldór Jónsson jr, Giorgio Di Lorenzo and Paolo Gargiulo, based at the Institute of Biomedical and Neural Engineering at Reykjavik University and at Università di Roma Tor Vergata.

The team has also had Age-Related Modulation of EEG Microstate Temporal Dynamics in an Immersive Virtual Reality Paradigm accepted as a full paper, which will be published in the upcoming months.

What did they study? 

The brain changes with age, both in its structure and in how its regions connect. Earlier research on how EEG microstates change with age has been carried out almost entirely while people rest. This study asked what happens when people have to keep their balance. 

EEG records the brain's electrical activity through sensors on the scalp. When the signal is examined moment by moment, it falls into a small number of recurring patterns called microstates. Each one holds for a fraction of a second before the next takes over. 

The study uses the BioVRSea protocol. Participants stand on a force platform wearing a virtual reality headset and an EEG cap, and view a virtual seascape. The task starts with two minutes of baseline in a still environment. Next come 40 seconds in the seascape without motion, two minutes in which the seascape and the platform both move, and a final 40 seconds without motion. In total, 104 participants aged 20 to 73 took part: 37 young adults (20–30 years), 31 middle-aged adults (31–50) and 36 older adults (52–73).

The finding 

One pattern stood out. Microstate C lasted longer in young adults than in middle-aged and older adults, in all four phases of the task. Platform motion and visual stimulation did not change the measurements, while the age difference remained. 

The authors suggest that microstate C may reflect a stable background mode of brain activity rather than a response to the demands of the task. This is an interpretation that remains to be tested. Their next step is to test whether the age effects extend to clinical conditions in the same paradigm. 

The BioVRSea paradigm offers a promising approach to investigating brain network activity during challenging, real-world-like dynamic tasks.

Paolo Gargiulo, Reykjavik University 

Paolo Gargiulo, Reykjavik University 

The same BioVRSea protocol featured in our earlier World of Science article on Parkinson's disease. The study reported here compares participants of different ages and does not address any disease. 

The research was supported by Rannís, the Icelandic Research Fund (Grant of Excellence no. 239612-051), and the Landspitali University Hospital research fund.