Bioceramics / Bioglasses
Mehrdad Davoudi; S. Mohammad Reza Shokouhyan; Mahdi Bagheri Rouchi; Masoud Abdollahi; Soha Bervis; Maryam Hoviat Talab; Mohamad Parnianpour
Volume 14, Issue 2 , July 2020, , Pages 81-96
Abstract
An open research question is how the central nervous system (CNS) to find a solution for the problem of redundancy or degree of freedom in the human shoulder motion control. We used time-varying synergy theory in which assumed that the relative activation between muscles is time-varying, to investigate ...
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An open research question is how the central nervous system (CNS) to find a solution for the problem of redundancy or degree of freedom in the human shoulder motion control. We used time-varying synergy theory in which assumed that the relative activation between muscles is time-varying, to investigate the combination of activation patterns of muscles in twelve 3-D hand-held exercises by Flexi-Bar using Anybody Technology software (A/S, Aalborg, Denmark). Using activation of 12 muscles and the moment across the joint as an input matrix for the optimization procedure to extract functional time-varying synergies, time delays and amplitude coefficients, the achieved 5 tonic and phasic synergies explained 79% of the data variation. Matching pursuit procedure and non-negative least square used to find timing shifts and amplitude coefficients respectively. Considering a new exercise out of the primary database, 60% of the activation patterns reconstructed using time-varying synergies. Although the extracted synergies seem to be directionally tuned, the results show that due to the same velocity in all exercises and also because the torque which that was applied due to the weight of the bar and arm on the joint is not significant, both timing shifts and separation phasic-tonic parts of the activation patterns provide no further explanation on CNS behavior and finding them causes unnecessary computational cost. Future study can focus on the comparison of synergies between two or more groups of exercises by the Flexi-Bar such as holding the bar vertically or horizontally with swinging it up and down or back and forth.
Biomechanics / Biomechanical Engineering
Mahdi Bagheri Rouchi; Mehrdad Davoudi; Mohammad Parnianpour
Volume 13, Issue 2 , August 2019, , Pages 177-187
Abstract
According to the literature, changes in muscle activity patterns are considered as one of the causes of non-specific chronic low back pain. Recent studies have introduced muscle synergy as a valuable tool for analyzing how muscles work in body movements. In this way, a new study method is proposed for ...
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According to the literature, changes in muscle activity patterns are considered as one of the causes of non-specific chronic low back pain. Recent studies have introduced muscle synergy as a valuable tool for analyzing how muscles work in body movements. In this way, a new study method is proposed for modeling upper body and extracting time-varying muscle synergies in flexural motion of the waist. In this way, a new study method is proposed for modeling trunk and extracting time-varying muscle synergies in plane bending movements of lumbar flexion. Considering 18 effective muscles and function of the combined cost of the minimum jerk-energy, 24 different movements and their corresponding muscle patterns have been simulated. To evaluate the role of velocity, the pattern of muscle activity was divided into two parts: tonic, to overcome the gravity force, and phasic, proportional to the trunk movement velocity. In the following, three fast-reaching times of 0.75, 1, and 2 seconds were considered for each direction. The results showed that 77% of the lumbar muscle pattern of movement was achieved by four phasic synergies and four tonic synergies. The resulting synergies are quite influenced by the movement direction and velocity, so that each pair of phasic and tonic synergy is most effective in one of the main directions. On the other hand, the increase in velocity causes elevated amplitude coefficient and accelerated activation of phasic synergies compared to normal mode. Considering the 45° flexion combination with 30° left lateral bending, 77.2% of the muscle pattern of movement has been reconstructed using time-varying synergies. It can be argued that the use of muscle synergies expresses a good explanation for how muscles work in movement at different directions and velocities.
