These files contain the MATLAB code and data required to reproduce Figures 2–5 of “Cortical responses to balance perturbations persist without active postural control”. The dataset includes 64-channel EEG and EMG signals from mGAS, SOL, and TA, together with kinematic and kinetic measures from the robotic balance simulator.

The data files must be stored in the same folder as the processing code.

NOTE: For Experiment 1, data are organized per participant in a single MATLAB table (trials), where each row corresponds to one trial. Trial metadata (e.g., conditionName and Direction) are stored as table columns. Robot-derived signals for each trial are stored in a column called T, where each entry is itself a table containing time series from the robotic simulator. Within these robot tables, columns include time (t), a trigger channel (Trigger), kinematic variables angular position and velocity (theta_AP/thetad_AP and theta_ML/thetad_ML), and the perturbation signal (motor_pert_FP). EEG and EMG data are stored per trial as EEGLAB-style structs that include fields such as data, times, and chanlocs. When fewer than 64 EEG channels are present in a given cleaned dataset, this reflects that channels were removed during preprocessing (e.g., due to noise or poor contact). In Experiment 1, perturbation direction is encoded in the trials table as Direction, where 1 indicates toes-down perturbations and -1 indicates toes-up perturbations. EEG data are also stored separately for plotting the scalp topography in Figure 2 in a mat file EEG_measurements. This table contains the subject name and the condition name and EEGLAB-style structs in three columns: EEG (all data); EEG-1 (EEG data from toes-up perturbations) and EEG1 (EEG data from toes-down perturbations). The Combined subfolder contains group-level outputs. In Experiment 1, these include pooled EEGLAB datasets and mat files used for theta component visualization and time–frequency analyses ( EEG_all.mat, componentTopograpgies.mat, ComponentTimeFrequency.mat, HilbertTransform.mat). The data are uploaded in two .zip files. All folders from each zip file must be placed in a folder titled "Experiment 1" for the code to run properly.

NOTE: For Experiment 2, data are organized per participant across three MATLAB files: Robot_Epochs.mat, EEG_measurements.mat, and EMG_measurements.mat. In Robot_Epochs.mat, robot-derived signals are stored in a table called Epochs, where each row corresponds to one trial. Trial metadata (e.g., conditionName and perturbation direction) are stored as table columns. The robot time series for each trial are stored in a column called T, where each entry is itself a table containing time series from the robotic simulator with the same variables and column names as in experiment 1. EEG and EMG data are stored separately in EEG_measurements.mat and EMG_measurements.mat as tables where each row corresponds to one experimental condition (e.g., balancing, isometric whole-body, relaxed whole-body, isometric footplate, relaxed footplate) and contains EEGLAB-style structs with trial data. In both EEG_measurements and EMG_measurements, perturbation direction is encoded using -1 and 1, where -1 indicates toes-up perturbations and 1 indicates toes-down perturbations. In Experiment 2, Combined subfolder includes pooled datasets and mat files used for component visualization and time–frequency analyses (emptyEEG.mat, componentTopograpgies.mat, ComponentTimeFrequency.mat, HilbertTransform.mat), as well as summary theta power metrics used for the peak theta analyses (thetaPower.mat). The data are uploaded in one .zip file. All folders from the zip file must be placed in a folder titled "Experiment 2" for the code to run properly.