A Feedback Model Reproduces Muscle Activity During Human Postural Responses to Support-Surface Translations

2008 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 1032-1038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torrence D. J. Welch ◽  
Lena H. Ting
Keyword(s):  
Postural Control ◽  
Muscle Activity ◽  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Temporal Patterns ◽  
Human Dimensions ◽  
Support Surface ◽  
Level Control ◽  
Muscle Activation Patterns ◽  
Postural Responses

Although feedback models have been used to simulate body motions in human postural control, it is not known whether muscle activation patterns generated by the nervous system during postural responses can also be explained by a feedback control process. We investigated whether a simple feedback law could explain temporal patterns of muscle activation in response to support-surface translations in human subjects. Previously, we used a single-link inverted-pendulum model with a delayed feedback controller to reproduce temporal patterns of muscle activity during postural responses in cats. We scaled this model to human dimensions and determined whether it could reproduce human muscle activity during forward and backward support-surface perturbations. Through optimization, we found three feedback gains (on pendulum acceleration, velocity, and displacement) and a common time delay that allowed the model to best match measured electromyographic (EMG) signals. For each muscle and each subject, the entire time courses of EMG signals during postural responses were well reconstructed in muscles throughout the lower body and resembled the solution derived from an optimal control model. In ankle muscles, >75% of the EMG variability was accounted for by model reconstructions. Surprisingly, >67% of the EMG variability was also accounted for in knee, hip, and pelvis muscles, even though motion at these joints was minimal. Although not explicitly required by our optimization, pendulum kinematics were well matched to subject center-of-mass (CoM) kinematics. Together, these results suggest that a common set of feedback signals related to task-level control of CoM motion is used in the temporal formation of muscle activity during postural control.

Muscle Synergies Characterizing Human Postural Responses

2007 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 2144-2156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gelsy Torres-Oviedo ◽  
Lena H. Ting
Keyword(s):  
Postural Control ◽  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Muscle Synergies ◽  
Support Surface ◽  
Muscle Coordination ◽  
Natural Behavior ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Muscle Activation Patterns ◽  
Postural Responses ◽  
Automatic Postural Responses

Postural control is a natural behavior that requires the spatial and temporal coordination of multiple muscles. Complex muscle activation patterns characterizing postural responses suggest the need for independent muscle control. However, our previous work shows that postural responses in cats can be robustly reproduced by the activation of a few muscle synergies. We now investigate whether a similar neural strategy is used for human postural control. We hypothesized that a few muscle synergies could account for the intertrial variability in automatic postural responses from different perturbation directions, as well as different postural strategies. Postural responses to multidirectional support-surface translations in 16 muscles of the lower back and leg were analyzed in nine healthy subjects. Six or fewer muscle synergies were required to reproduce the postural responses of each subject. The composition and temporal activation of several muscle synergies identified across all subjects were consistent with the previously identified “ankle” and “hip” strategies in human postural responses. Moreover, intertrial variability in muscle activation patterns was successfully reproduced by modulating the activity of the various muscle synergies. This suggests that trial-to-trial variations in the activation of individual muscles are correlated and, moreover, represent variations in the amplitude of descending neural commands that activate individual muscle synergies. Finally, composition and temporal activation of most of the muscle synergies were similar across subjects. These results suggest that muscle synergies represent a general neural strategy underlying muscle coordination in postural tasks.

scholarly journals The effect of hyper-pronated foot on postural control and ankle muscle activity during running and cutting movement

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 216-220
Author(s):  
Zahed Mantashloo ◽  
Heydar Sadeghi ◽  
Mehdi Khaleghi Tazji ◽  
Vanessa Rice ◽  
Elizabeth J Bradshaw
Keyword(s):  
Postural Control ◽  
Muscle Activity ◽  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
The Body ◽  
Lateral Direction ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Muscle Activation Patterns ◽  
Ankle Muscle

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of hyper pronated foot on postural control and ankle muscle activity during running and cutting movement (v-cut). Methods: In this Cross-Sectional study, 42 young physically active (exercising three times per week regularly) males participated in this study, including 21 with hyper-pronated feet and 21 with normal feet. Each participant completed a running and cutting task. Body postural control was measured using a force platform (1000Hz) which was synchronized with surface electromyography of selected ankle muscles. MATLAB software was used to process and analyze the data. One-away ANOVA was used to identify any differences between groups. Results: Differing muscle activation patterns in the surrounding ankle musculature (tibialis anterior, peroneus longus) through to reduced postural stability in the medial-lateral direction and increased vertical ground reaction forces were observed between groups. Conclusion: According to the obtained results it seems that subtalar hyper-pronation can be regarded as a factor affecting the biomechanics of cutting by changing activation patterns of the muscles surrounding the ankle, and reducing postural control of the body in medial-lateral direction, but not in anterior-posterior direction.

A Limited Set of Muscle Synergies for Force Control During a Postural Task

2005 ◽  
Vol 93 (1) ◽  
pp. 609-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena H. Ting ◽  
Jane M. Macpherson
Keyword(s):  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Neural Control ◽  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Balance Control ◽  
Computational Techniques ◽  
Muscle Synergies ◽  
Support Surface ◽  
Muscle Activation Patterns ◽  
Automatic Postural Response ◽  
Postural Responses

Recently developed computational techniques have been used to reduce muscle activation patterns of high complexity to a simple synergy organization and to bring new insights to the long-standing degrees of freedom problem in motor control. We used a nonnegative factorization approach to identify muscle synergies during postural responses in the cat and to examine the functional significance of such synergies for natural behaviors. We hypothesized that the simplification of neural control afforded by muscle synergies must be matched by a similar reduction in degrees of freedom at the biomechanical level. Electromyographic data were recorded from 8–15 hindlimb muscles of cats exposed to 16 directions of support surface translation. Results showed that as few as four synergies could account for >95% of the automatic postural response across all muscles and all directions. Each synergy was activated for a specific set of perturbation directions, and moreover, each was correlated with a unique vector of endpoint force under the limb. We suggest that, within the context of active balance control, postural synergies reflect a neural command signal that specifies endpoint force of a limb.

Influence of stimulus parameters on human postural responses

1988 ◽  
Vol 59 (6) ◽  
pp. 1888-1905 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. C. Diener ◽  
F. B. Horak ◽  
L. M. Nashner
Keyword(s):  
Short Duration ◽  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Temporal Organization ◽  
Emg Activity ◽  
Support Surface ◽  
Stimulus Velocity ◽  
Velocity Amplitude ◽  
Muscle Activation Patterns ◽  
Postural Responses

1. The role of sensory information in shaping muscle activation patterns to postural perturbations in humans was investigated by varying velocity, amplitude, or duration of the perturbing stimulus. Ten normal subjects were exposed to 120 backward translations of the support surface under conditions of varying velocities (10-35 cm/s, constant amplitude), varying amplitudes (1.2-12 cm, constant velocity), or varying durations (40-800 ms). The effects of perturbation parameters on movement kinematics and EMG latencies, patterns, and integrated areas in six trunk and leg muscles were examined. Integrated EMG activity was normalized across subjects and the early (first 75 ms), middle (second 75 ms), and late (last 350 ms) components were analyzed separately. 2. Ankle, knee, and hip angle trajectories and surface reactive forces suggest that a relatively consistent movement strategy was scaled to the perturbation velocities and amplitudes applied. 3. Short-duration perturbations (75 ms) evoked a single burst of muscle activity (75-100 ms duration) in gastrocnemius, hamstrings, paraspinal, and rectus abdominis muscles at latencies too long to be explained by simple stretch reflexes. EMG latencies, patterns, and integrated areas were independent of the velocity and amplitude of the short-duration perturbations, suggesting a minimal time to incorporate peripheral velocity information into the triggered response. 4. For translations lasting longer than 75 ms, the integrated areas of the early agonist EMG bursts were positively correlated with stimulus velocity. The integrated area of later, more tonic EMG components were best correlated with stimulus amplitude. These relationships were found in both distal (stretched) muscles and in proximal muscles. Absolute latencies (94-145 ms), intersegmental latencies (18-29 ms), and burst durations (75-100 ms) were not influenced by the velocity or amplitude of the stimulus. 5. These results suggest that the spatial and temporal organization of automatic postural responses may be organized independently of response intensity. Within a particular spatial-temporal pattern, the amount of muscle activation appears to be adjusted by sensory information, which specifies velocity and amplitude of the perturbation.

scholarly journals Electromyographic Responses From the Hindlimb Muscles of the Decerebrate Cat to Horizontal Support Surface Perturbations

2009 ◽  
Vol 101 (6) ◽  
pp. 2751-2761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire F. Honeycutt ◽  
Jinger S. Gottschall ◽  
T. Richard Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Postural Control ◽  
Brain Stem ◽  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Support Surface ◽  
Decerebrate Cat ◽  
Tuning Curves ◽  
Muscle Activation Patterns ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Horizontal Support

The sensory and neural mechanisms underlying postural control have received much attention in recent decades but remain poorly understood. Our objectives were 1) to establish the decerebrate cat as an appropriate model for further research into the sensory mechanisms of postural control and 2) to observe what elements of the postural response can be generated by the brain stem and spinal cord. Ten animals were decerebrated using a modified premammillary technique, which consists of a premammillary decerebration that is modified with a vertical transection near the subthalamic nucleus to eliminate spontaneous locomotion. Horizontal support surface perturbations were applied to all four limbs and electromyographic recordings were collected from 14 muscles of the right hindlimb. Muscle activation was quantified with tuning curves, which compared increases and decreases in muscle activity to background and graphed the difference against perturbation direction. Parallels were drawn between these tuning curves, which were further quantified with a principal direction and breadth (range of directions of muscle activation), and data collected by other researchers from the intact animal. We found a strong similarity in the direction and breadth of the tuning curves generated in the decerebrate and intact cat. These results support our hypothesis that directionally specific tuning of muscles in response to support surface perturbations does not require the cortex, further indicating a strong role for the brain stem and spinal cord circuits in mediating directionally appropriate muscle activation patterns.

Muscle Synergy Organization Is Robust Across a Variety of Postural Perturbations

2006 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 1530-1546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gelsy Torres-Oviedo ◽  
Jane M. Macpherson ◽  
Lena H. Ting
Keyword(s):  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Balance Control ◽  
Muscle Synergy ◽  
Muscle Synergies ◽  
Support Surface ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Muscle Activation Patterns ◽  
Postural Responses ◽  
Force Vectors

We recently showed that four muscle synergies can reproduce multiple muscle activation patterns in cats during postural responses to support surface translations. We now test the robustness of functional muscle synergies, which specify muscle groupings and the active force vectors produced during postural responses under several biomechanically distinct conditions. We aimed to determine whether such synergies represent a generalized control strategy for postural control or if they are merely specific to each postural task. Postural responses to multidirectional translations at different fore-hind paw distances and to multidirectional rotations at the preferred stance distance were analyzed. Five synergies were required to adequately reconstruct responses to translation at the preferred stance distance—four were similar to our previous analysis of translation, whereas the fifth accounted for the newly added background activity during quiet stance. These five control synergies could account for >80% total variability or r2 > 0.6 of the electromyographic and force tuning curves for all other experimental conditions. Forces were successfully reconstructed but only when they were referenced to a coordinate system that rotated with the limb axis as stance distance changed. Finally, most of the functional muscle synergies were similar across all of the six cats in terms of muscle synergy number, synergy activation patterns, and synergy force vectors. The robustness of synergy organization across perturbation types, postures, and animals suggests that muscle synergies controlling task-variables are a general construct used by the CNS for balance control.

scholarly journals Is the Occurrence of the Sticking Region in Maximum Smith Machine Squats the Result of Diminishing Potentiation and Co-Contraction of the Prime Movers among Recreationally Resistance Trained Males?

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 1366
Author(s):  
Roland van den Tillaar ◽  
Eirik Lindset Kristiansen ◽  
Stian Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Muscle Activity ◽  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Gluteus Maximus ◽  
Knee Extensors ◽  
Force Output ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Muscle Activation Patterns ◽  
Prime Movers ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Height Data

This study compared the kinetics, barbell, and joint kinematics and muscle activation patterns between a one-repetition maximum (1-RM) Smith machine squat and isometric squats performed at 10 different heights from the lowest barbell height. The aim was to investigate if force output is lowest in the sticking region, indicating that this is a poor biomechanical region. Twelve resistance trained males (age: 22 ± 5 years, mass: 83.5 ± 39 kg, height: 1.81 ± 0.20 m) were tested. A repeated two-way analysis of variance showed that Force output decreased in the sticking region for the 1-RM trial, while for the isometric trials, force output was lowest between 0–15 cm from the lowest barbell height, data that support the sticking region is a poor biomechanical region. Almost all muscles showed higher activity at 1-RM compared with isometric attempts (p < 0.05). The quadriceps activity decreased, and the gluteus maximus and shank muscle activity increased with increasing height (p ≤ 0.024). Moreover, the vastus muscles decreased only for the 1-RM trial while remaining stable at the same positions in the isometric trials (p = 0.04), indicating that potentiation occurs. Our findings suggest that a co-contraction between the hip and knee extensors, together with potentiation from the vastus muscles during ascent, creates a poor biomechanical region for force output, and thereby the sticking region among recreationally resistance trained males during 1-RM Smith machine squats.

scholarly journals Changes in Locomotor Muscle Activity After Treadmill Training in Subjects With Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury

2009 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 969-979 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica A. Gorassini ◽  
Jonathan A. Norton ◽  
Jennifer Nevett-Duchcherer ◽  
Francois D. Roy ◽  
Jaynie F. Yang
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
Muscle Activity ◽  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Treadmill Training ◽  
Emg Activity ◽  
Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Muscle Activation Patterns ◽  
Cord Injury

Intensive treadmill training after incomplete spinal cord injury can improve functional walking abilities. To determine the changes in muscle activation patterns that are associated with improvements in walking, we measured the electromyography (EMG) of leg muscles in 17 individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury during similar walking conditions both before and after training. Specific differences were observed between subjects that eventually gained functional improvements in overground walking (responders), compared with subjects where treadmill training was ineffective (nonresponders). Although both groups developed a more regular and less clonic EMG pattern on the treadmill, it was only the tibialis anterior and hamstring muscles in the responders that displayed increases in EMG activation. Likewise, only the responders demonstrated decreases in burst duration and cocontraction of proximal (hamstrings and quadriceps) muscle activity. Surprisingly, the proximal muscle activity in the responders, unlike nonresponders, was three- to fourfold greater than that in uninjured control subjects walking at similar speeds and level of body weight support, suggesting that the ability to modify muscle activation patterns after injury may predict the ability of subjects to further compensate in response to motor training. In summary, increases in the amount and decreases in the duration of EMG activity of specific muscles are associated with functional recovery of walking skills after treadmill training in subjects that are able to modify muscle activity patterns following incomplete spinal cord injury.

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