Initiation rules for planar, two-joint arm movements: agonist selection for movements throughout the work space. J Neurophysiol (original) (raw)

Journal of Neurophysiology

Abstract

1. The question we addressed was the following: what rules does the CNS employ, given the initial and final positions of the arm for a pointing movement, to decide which shoulder and elbow muscles ("agonists") to activate for initiating movement? 2. Widely varying initial and final positions were used, so that the movements studied encompassed much of the reachable work space within the horizontal plane. For each movement, the initial electromyographic (EMG) activity at each joint was classified qualitatively in terms of the "sign," i.e., flexor or extensor muscle activity, and quantitatively in terms of the integral of the rectified EMG. 3. The sign of initial muscle activity at each joint was found to be related to the angular excursions at both joints during movement to the final position. 4. Two different hypothesized rules, derived from previously proposed strategies for control of multijoint limb movements, were tested for their ability to predict correctly...

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