scholarly journals Aggressiveness of the Growl-Like Timbre: Acoustic Characteristics, Musical Implications, and Biomechanical Mechanisms

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen-Gia Tsai ◽  
Li-Ching Wang ◽  
Shwu-Fen Wang ◽  
Yio-Wha Shau ◽  
Tzu-Yu Hsiao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Muscle Contraction ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Muscle Activity ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Significant Positive Correlation ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Biomechanical Model ◽  
Abdominal Muscle ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics

THE TERM GROWL TYPICALLY REFERS TO LOW-PITCHED, rough sounds uttered by animals. Humans occasionally use growl-like voices to express excessive emotions. Acoustically characterized by loud dynamics and low values of the harmonic-to-noise ratio, growl-like sounds usually express anger and excitement associated with aggression. We propose a biomechanical model relating the aggressive characteristic of the growl-like timbre to the motor mechanisms underlying growl production in humans, highlighting how an abdominal muscle contraction enhances spine stability, which plays a critical role in physical attacks. This model was supported by the experimental data of activation of the deepest abdominal muscle during resting, singing, and growling. We found a significant positive correlation between the abdominal muscle activity associated with producing voice and the perceived aggressiveness intensity of voice. The cognition of growl-like sounds is discussed from the perspectives of biomechanics, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science.

Abdominal muscle use during quiet breathing and hyperpnea in uninformed subjects

1982 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 700-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. H. Loring ◽  
J. Mead
Keyword(s):  
Muscle Contraction ◽  
Muscle Activity ◽  
Abdominal Muscle ◽  
Abdominal Muscles ◽  
Quiet Breathing ◽  
Rib Cage ◽  
Relaxation Characteristics

Although there is electromyographic evidence for abdominal muscle activity during quiet breathing in standing subjects, several studies have shown, or assumed, that subjects normally breathe on their relaxation characteristics. This latter observation would by itself suggest that abdominal muscles do not contract during quiet breathing. To test this assumption we observed abdominal and rib cage displacements with magnetometers in 17 uninformed subjects. During quiet breathing most subjects showed evidence of tonic or phasic abdominal muscle contraction while standing and sitting but not supine. Subjects studied during hyperpnea immediately following exercise-showed evidence of greater abdominal muscle contraction than at rest. We conclude that most subjects standing at rest normally contract their abdominal muscles.

scholarly journals Reduced biomechanical models for precision-cut lung-slice stretching experiments

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah J. Pybus ◽  
Amanda L. Tatler ◽  
Lowell T. Edgar ◽  
Reuben D. O’Dea ◽  
Bindi S. Brook
Keyword(s):  
Smooth Muscle ◽  
Muscle Contraction ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Finite Thickness ◽  
Biomechanical Model ◽  
Local Stress ◽  
Smooth Muscle Contraction ◽  
Biomechanical Models ◽  
Cytokine Activation ◽  
Asymptotic Reduction

AbstractPrecision-cut lung-slices (PCLS), in which viable airways embedded within lung parenchyma are stretched or induced to contract, are a widely used ex vivo assay to investigate bronchoconstriction and, more recently, mechanical activation of pro-remodelling cytokines in asthmatic airways. We develop a nonlinear fibre-reinforced biomechanical model accounting for smooth muscle contraction and extracellular matrix strain-stiffening. Through numerical simulation, we describe the stresses and contractile responses of an airway within a PCLS of finite thickness, exposing the importance of smooth muscle contraction on the local stress state within the airway. We then consider two simplifying limits of the model (a membrane representation and an asymptotic reduction in the thin-PCLS-limit), that permit analytical progress. Comparison against numerical solution of the full problem shows that the asymptotic reduction successfully captures the key elements of the full model behaviour. The more tractable reduced model that we develop is suitable to be employed in investigations to elucidate the time-dependent feedback mechanisms linking airway mechanics and cytokine activation in asthma.

scholarly journals The Effects of Core Stabilization Exercise with the Abdominal Drawing-in Maneuver Technique versus General Strengthening Exercise on Lumbar Segmental Motion in Patients with Clinical Lumbar Instability: A Randomized Controlled Trial with 12-Month Follow-Up

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (15) ◽  
pp. 7811
Author(s):  
Rungthip Puntumetakul ◽  
Pongsatorn Saiklang ◽  
Weerasak Tapanya ◽  
Thiwaphon Chatprem ◽  
Jaturat Kanpittaya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Muscle Activity ◽  
Muscle Activation ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Abdominal Muscle ◽  
Segmental Motion ◽  
Lumbar Instability ◽  
Stabilization Exercise ◽  
Core Stabilization ◽  
Core Stabilization Exercise

Trunk stability exercises that focus on either deep or superficial muscles might produce different effects on lumbar segmental motion. This study compared outcomes in 34 lumbar instability patients in two exercises at 10 weeks and 12 months follow up. Participants were divided into either Core stabilization (deep) exercise, incorporating abdominal drawing-in maneuver technique (CSE with ADIM), or General strengthening (superficial) exercise (STE). Outcome measures were pain, muscle activation, and lumbar segmental motion. Participants in CSE with ADIM had significantly less pain than those in STE at 10 weeks. They showed significantly more improvement of abdominal muscle activity ratio than participants in STE at 10 weeks and 12 months follow-up. Participants in CSE with ADIM had significantly reduced sagittal translation at L4-L5 and L5-S1 compared with STE at 10 weeks. Participants in CSE with ADIM had significantly reduced sagittal translations at L4-L5 and L5-S1 compared with participants in STE at 10 weeks, whereas STE demonstrated significantly increased sagittal rotation at L4-L5. However, at 12 months follow-up, levels of lumbar sagittal translation were increased in both groups. CSE with ADIM which focuses on increasing deep trunk muscle activity can reduce lumbar segmental translation and should be recommended for lumbar instability.

Lumbar and abdominal muscle activity during walking in subjects with chronic low back pain: Support of the “guarding” hypothesis?

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marije van der Hulst ◽  
Miriam M. Vollenbroek-Hutten ◽  
Johan S. Rietman ◽  
Hermanus J. Hermens
Keyword(s):  
Low Back Pain ◽  
Back Pain ◽  
Chronic Low Back Pain ◽  
Muscle Activity ◽  
Abdominal Muscle ◽  
Low Back

Evolution of hindlimb posture in nonmammalian therapsids: biomechanical tests of paleontological hypotheses

Paleobiology ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Blob
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Biomechanical Model ◽  
Axial Rotation ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
Upright Posture ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Model Calculations ◽  
Limb Bones ◽  
Plausible Model ◽  
Bending Stresses

Analyses of limb joint morphology in nonmammalian therapsid “mammal-like reptiles” have suggested that among many lineages, individual animals were capable of shifting between sprawling and upright hindlimb postures, much like modern crocodilians. The ability to use multiple limb postures thus might have been ancestral to the generally more upright posture that evolved during the transition from “mammal-like reptiles” to mammals. Here I derive a biomechanical model to test this hypothesis through calculations of expected posture-related changes in femoral stress for therapsid taxa using different limb postures. The model incorporates morphological data from fossil specimens and experimental data from force platform experiments on iguanas and alligators.Experimental data suggest that the evolutionary transition from sprawling to nonsprawling posture was accompanied by a change in the predominant loading regime of the limb bones, from torsion to bending. Changes in the cross-sectional morphology of the hindlimb bones between sphenacodontid “pelycosaurs” and gorgonopsid therapsids are consistent with the hypothesis that bending loads increased in importance early in therapsid evolution; thus, bending stresses are an appropriate model for the maximal loads experienced by the limb bones of theriodont therapsids. Results from the model used to estimate stresses in these taxa do not refute the use of both sprawling and more upright stance among basal theriodont therapsids. Thus, the hypothesis that the use of multiple postures was ancestral to the more upright posture typical of most mammals is biomechanically plausible. Model calculations also indicate that the axial rotation of the femur typical in sprawling locomotion can reduce peak bending stresses. Therefore, as experimental data from alligators and iguanas suggest, the evolution of nonsprawling limb posture and kinematics in therapsids might have been accompanied by increased limb bone bending stress.

Expiratory muscle activity in the awake and sleeping human during lung inflation and hypercapnia

1992 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 881-887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Wakai ◽  
M. M. Welsh ◽  
A. M. Leevers ◽  
J. D. Road
Keyword(s):  
Lung Volume ◽  
Muscle Activity ◽  
Ventilatory Threshold ◽  
Minute Ventilation ◽  
Abdominal Muscle ◽  
Transversus Abdominis ◽  
Abdominal Muscles ◽  
Lung Inflation ◽  
Expiratory Muscle ◽  
Intramuscular Electrodes

Expiratory muscle activity has been shown to occur in awake humans during lung inflation; however, whether this activity is dependent on consciousness is unclear. Therefore we measured abdominal muscle electromyograms (intramuscular electrodes) in 13 subjects studied in the supine position during wakefulness and non-rapid-eye-movement sleep. Lung inflation was produced by nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). CPAP at 10–15 cmH2O produced phasic expiratory activity in two subjects during wakefulness but produced no activity in any subject during sleep. During sleep, CPAP to 15 cmH2O increased lung volume by 1,260 +/- 215 (SE) ml, but there was no change in minute ventilation. The ventilatory threshold at which phasic abdominal muscle activity was first recorded during hypercapnia was 10.3 +/- 1.1 l/min while awake and 13.8 +/- 1 l/min while asleep (P less than 0.05). Higher lung volumes reduced the threshold for abdominal muscle recruitment during hypercapnia. We conclude that lung inflation alone over the range that we studied does not alter ventilation or produce recruitment of the abdominal muscles in sleeping humans. The internal oblique and transversus abdominis are activated at a lower ventilatory threshold during hypercapnia, and this activation is influenced by state and lung volume.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document