Interlimb coordination in body-weight supported locomotion: A pilot study (original) (raw)
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PloS one, 2017
A constant coordination between the left and right leg is required to maintain stability during human locomotion, especially in a variable environment. The neural mechanisms underlying this interlimb coordination are not yet known. In animals, interneurons located within the spinal cord allow direct communication between the two sides without the need for the involvement of higher centers. These may also exist in humans since sensory feedback elicited by tibial nerve stimulation on one side (ipsilateral) can affect the muscles activation in the opposite side (contralateral), provoking short-latency crossed responses (SLCRs). The current study investigated whether contralateral afferent feedback contributes to the mechanism controlling the SLCR in human gastrocnemius muscle. Surface electromyogram, kinematic and kinetic data were recorded from subjects during normal walking and hybrid walking (with the legs moving in opposite directions). An inverse dynamics model was applied to esti...
Neuronal coordination of arm and leg movements during human locomotion
European Journal of Neuroscience, 2001
We aimed to study the neuronal coordination of lower and upper limb muscles. We therefore evaluated the effect of small leg displacements during gait on leg and arm muscle electromyographic (EMG) activity in walking humans. During walking on a splitbelt treadmill (velocity 3.5 km/h), short accelerations or decelerations were randomly applied to the right belt during the mid or end stance phase. Alternatively, trains of electrical stimuli were delivered to the right distal tibial nerve. The EMG activity of the tibialis anterior (TA), gastrocnemius medialis (GM), deltoideus (Delt), triceps (Tric) and biceps brachii (Bic) of both sides was analysed. For comparison, impulses were also applied during standing and sitting. The displacements were followed by speci®c patterns of right leg and bilateral arm muscle EMG responses. Most arm muscle responses appeared with a short latency (65± 80 ms) and were larger in Delt and Tric than in Bic. They were strongest when deceleration impulses were released during mid stance, associated with a right compensatory TA response. A similar response pattern in arm muscles was obtained following tibial nerve stimulation. The arm muscle responses were small or absent when stimuli were applied during standing or sitting. The arm muscle responses correlated more closely with the compensatory TA than with the compensatory GM responses. The amplitude of the responses in most arm muscles correlated closely with the background EMG activity of the respective arm muscle. The observations suggest the existence of a task-dependent,¯exible neuronal coupling between lower and upper limb muscles. The stronger impact of leg¯exors in this interlimb coordination indicates that the neuronal control of leg¯exor and extensor muscles is differentially interconnected during locomotion. The results are compatible with the assumption that the proximal arm muscle responses are associated with the swinging of the arms during gait, as a residual function of quadrupedal locomotion.
Sensorimotor State of the Contralateral Leg Affects Ipsilateral Muscle Coordination of Pedaling
Journal of Neurophysiology, 1998
A. nate their limbs [ for reviews, see Getting (1988), Grillner Kautz, and Felix E. Zajac. Sensorimotor state of the contralateral and Wallén (1985), and Pearson (1993)]. Some evidence leg affects ipsilateral muscle coordination of pedaling. J. Neurophysexists that humans with spinal cord injuries may also have iol. 80: 1341-1351, 1998. The objective of this study was to determine locomotor pattern-generating capabilities (Calancie et al. if independent central pattern generating elements controlling the legs 1994; Rossignol et al. 1996). Although studies investigating in bipedal and unipedal locomotion is a viable theory for locomotor central interlimb coupling during human lower limb movepropulsion in humans. Coordinative coupling of the limbs could then
Modular control during incline and level walking in humans
The Journal of Experimental Biology, 2016
The neuromuscular control of human movement can be described by a set of muscle synergies factorized from myoelectric signals. There is some evidence that the selection, activation and flexible combination of these basic activation patterns are of a neural origin. We investigated the muscle synergies during incline and level walking to evaluate changes in the modular organization of neuromuscular control related to changes in the mechanical demands. Our results revealed five fundamental (not further factorizable) synergies for both walking conditions but with different frequencies of appearance of the respective synergies during incline compared with level walking. Low similarities across conditions were observed in the timing of the activation patterns (motor primitives) and the weightings of the muscles within the respective elements (motor modules) for the synergies associated with the touchdown, mid-stance and early push-off phase. The changes in neuromuscular control could be attributed to changes in the mechanical demands in support, propulsion and medio-lateral stabilization of the body during incline compared with level walking. Our findings provide further evidence that the central nervous system flexibly uses a consistent set of neural control elements with a flexible temporal recruitment and modifications of the relative muscle weightings within each element to provide stable locomotion under varying mechanical demands during walking.
Interlimb communication to the knee flexors during walking in humans
The Journal of Physiology, 2013
• Following unexpected ipsilateral knee extension joint rotations applied during the late stance phase of the gait cycle in humans, a crossed reflex response was observed in the contralateral biceps femoris (cBF) muscle with a mean onset latency of 76 ms. • Transcranial magnetic and electrical stimulation applied to the primary motor cortex revealed that a transcortical pathway probably contributes to the cBF response. • We hypothesize that the cBF response signifies a preparation of the contralateral leg for early load bearing, helping the body to maintain dynamic stability during walking. • This is the first study to show that a transcortical pathway contributes to an interlimb reflex in upper leg muscles. The transcortical nature of the response may allow for more adaptable responses than purely spinally mediated reflexes due to integration with other sensory information.
Effects of Perturbations to Balance on Neuromechanics of Fast Changes in Direction during Locomotion
PLoS ONE, 2013
This study investigated whether the modular control of changes in direction while running is influenced by perturbations to balance. Twenty-two healthy men performed 90u side-step unperturbed cutting manoeuvres while running (UPT) as well as manoeuvres perturbed at initial contact (PTB, 10 cm translation of a moveable force platform). Surface EMG activity from 16 muscles of the supporting limb and trunk, kinematics, and ground reaction forces were recorded. Motor modules composed by muscle weightings and their respective activation signals were extracted from the EMG signals by non-negative matrix factorization. Knee joint moments, co-contraction ratios and co-contraction indexes (hamstrings/quadriceps) and motor modules were compared between UPT and PTB. Five motor modules were enough to reconstruct UPT and PTB EMG activity (variance accounted for UPT = 9265%, PTB = 9066%). Moreover, higher similarities between muscle weightings from UPT and PTB (similarity = 0.8360.08) were observed in comparison to the similarities between the activation signals that drive the temporal properties of the motor modules (similarity = 0.7160.18). In addition, the reconstruction of PTB EMG from fixed muscle weightings from UPT resulted in higher reconstruction quality (8266%) when compared to reconstruction of PTB EMG from fixed activation signals from UPT (59611%). Perturbations at initial contact reduced knee abduction moments (7%), as well as co-contraction ratio (11%) and co-contraction index (12%) shortly after the perturbation onset. These changes in co-contraction ratio and co-contraction index were caused by a reduced activation of hamstrings that was also verified in the activation signals of the specific motor module related to initial contact. Our results suggested that perturbations to balance influence modular control of cutting manoeuvres, especially the temporal properties of muscle recruitment, due to altered afferent inputs to the motor patterns. Furthermore, reduced knee stability during perturbed events may be related to overall control of lower limb muscles.
Integration of sensory, spinal, and volitional descending inputs in regulation of human locomotion
Journal of Neurophysiology, 2016
We reported previously that both transcutaneous electrical spinal cord stimulation and direct pressure stimulation of the plantar surfaces of the feet can elicit rhythmic involuntary step-like movements in noninjured subjects with their legs in a gravity-neutral apparatus. The present experiments investigated the convergence of spinal and plantar pressure stimulation and voluntary effort in the activation of locomotor movements in uninjured subjects under full body weight support in a vertical position. For all conditions, leg movements were analyzed using electromyographic (EMG) recordings and optical motion capture of joint kinematics. Spinal cord stimulation elicited rhythmic hip and knee flexion movements accompanied by EMG bursting activity in the hamstrings of 6/6 subjects. Similarly, plantar stimulation induced bursting EMG activity in the ankle flexor and extensor muscles in 5/6 subjects. Moreover, the combination of spinal and plantar stimulation exhibited a synergistic eff...
Neuromuscular adjustments of gait associated with unstable conditions
Journal of Neurophysiology, 2015
A compact description of coordinated muscle activity is provided by the factorization of electromyographic (EMG) signals. With the use of this approach, it has consistently been shown that multimuscle activity during human locomotion can be accounted for by four to five modules, each one comprised of a basic pattern timed at a different phase of gait cycle and the weighting coefficients of synergistic muscle activations. These modules are flexible, in so far as the timing of patterns and the amplitude of weightings can change as a function of gait speed and mode. Here we consider the adjustments of the locomotor modules related to unstable walking conditions. We compared three different conditions, i.e., locomotion of healthy subjects on slippery ground (SL) and on narrow beam (NB) and of cerebellar ataxic (CA) patients on normal ground. Motor modules were computed from the EMG signals of 12 muscles of the right lower limb using non-negative matrix factorization. The unstable gait o...
Within-step modulation of leg muscle activity by afferent feedback in human walking
The Journal of physiology, 2008
To maintain smooth and efficient gait the motor system must adjust for changes in the ground on a step-to-step basis. In the present study we investigated the role of sensory feedback as 19 able-bodied human subjects walked over a platform that mimicked an uneven supporting surface. Triceps surae muscle activation was assessed during stance as the platform was set to different inclinations (+/-3 deg, +/-2 deg and 0 deg rotation in a parasagittal plane about the ankle). Normalized triceps surae muscle activity was significantly increased when the platform was inclined (2 deg: 0.153 +/- 0.051; 3 deg: 0.156 +/- 0.053) and significantly decreased when the platform was declined (-3 deg: 0.133 +/- 0.048; -2 deg: 0.132 +/- 0.049) compared with level walking (0.141 +/- 0.048) for the able-bodied subjects. A similar experiment was performed with a subject who lacked proprioception and touch sensation from the neck down. In contrast with healthy subjects, no muscle activation changes were obs...