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Monte A, Benamati A, Pavan A, d'Avella A, Bertucco M. Muscle synergies for multidirectional isometric force generation during maintenance of upright standing posture. Exp Brain Res 2024; 242:1881-1902. [PMID: 38874594 PMCID: PMC11252224 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-024-06866-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2023] [Accepted: 05/27/2024] [Indexed: 06/15/2024]
Abstract
Muscle synergies are defined as coordinated recruitment of groups of muscles with specific activation balances and time profiles aimed at generating task-specific motor commands. While muscle synergies in postural control have been investigated primarily in reactive balance conditions, the neuromechanical contribution of muscle synergies during voluntary control of upright standing is still unclear. In this study, muscle synergies were investigated during the generation of isometric force at the trunk during the maintenance of standing posture. Participants were asked to maintain the steady-state upright standing posture while pulling forces of different magnitudes were applied at the level at the waist in eight horizontal directions. Muscle synergies were extracted by nonnegative matrix factorization from sixteen lower limb and trunk muscles. An average of 5-6 muscle synergies were sufficient to account for a wide variety of EMG waveforms associated with changes in the magnitude and direction of pulling forces. A cluster analysis partitioned the muscle synergies of the participants into a large group of clusters according to their similarity, indicating the use of a subjective combination of muscles to generate a multidirectional force vector in standing. Furthermore, we found a participant-specific distribution in the values of cosine directional tuning parameters of synergy amplitude coefficients, suggesting the existence of individual neuromechanical strategies to stabilize the whole-body posture. Our findings provide a starting point for the development of novel diagnostic tools to assess muscle coordination in postural control and lay the foundation for potential applications of muscle synergies in rehabilitation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Monte
- Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Via Felice Casorati 43, 37131, Verona, Italy
| | - Anna Benamati
- Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Via Felice Casorati 43, 37131, Verona, Italy
| | - Agnese Pavan
- Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Via Felice Casorati 43, 37131, Verona, Italy
| | - Andrea d'Avella
- Laboratory of Neuromotor Physiology, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy
- Department of Biology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
| | - Matteo Bertucco
- Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Via Felice Casorati 43, 37131, Verona, Italy.
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Borzelli D, Vieira TMM, Botter A, Gazzoni M, Lacquaniti F, d'Avella A. Synaptic inputs to motor neurons underlying muscle coactivation for functionally different tasks have different spectral characteristics. J Neurophysiol 2024; 131:1126-1142. [PMID: 38629162 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00199.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2023] [Revised: 04/11/2024] [Accepted: 04/11/2024] [Indexed: 06/01/2024] Open
Abstract
The central nervous system (CNS) may produce the same endpoint trajectory or torque profile with different muscle activation patterns. What differentiates these patterns is the presence of cocontraction, which does not contribute to effective torque generation but allows to modulate joints' mechanical stiffness. Although it has been suggested that the generation of force and the modulation of stiffness rely on separate pathways, a characterization of the differences between the synaptic inputs to motor neurons (MNs) underlying these tasks is still missing. In this study, participants coactivated the same pair of upper-limb muscles, i.e., the biceps brachii and the triceps brachii, to perform two functionally different tasks: limb stiffness modulation or endpoint force generation. Spike trains of MNs were identified through decomposition of high-density electromyograms (EMGs) collected from the two muscles. Cross-correlogram showed a higher synchronization between MNs recruited to modulate stiffness, whereas cross-muscle coherence analysis revealed peaks in the β-band, which is commonly ascribed to a cortical origin. These peaks did not appear during the coactivation for force generation, thus suggesting separate cortical inputs for stiffness modulation. Moreover, a within-muscle coherence analysis identified two subsets of MNs that were selectively recruited to generate force or regulate stiffness. This study is the first to highlight different characteristics, and probable different neural origins, of the synaptic inputs driving a pair of muscles under different functional conditions. We suggest that stiffness modulation is driven by cortical inputs that project to a separate set of MNs, supporting the existence of a separate pathway underlying the control of stiffness.NEW & NOTEWORTHY The characterization of the pathways underlying force generation or stiffness modulation are still unknown. In this study, we demonstrated that the common input to motor neurons of antagonist muscles shows a high-frequency component when muscles are coactivated to modulate stiffness but not to generate force. Our results provide novel insights on the neural strategies for the recruitment of multiple muscles by identifying specific spectral characteristics of the synaptic inputs underlying functionally different tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniele Borzelli
- Department of Biomedical, Dental, Morphological and Functional Imaging Sciences, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
- Laboratory of Neuromotor Physiology, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy
| | - Taian M M Vieira
- Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
- PoliToBIOMed Lab, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
| | - Alberto Botter
- Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
- PoliToBIOMed Lab, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
| | - Marco Gazzoni
- Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
- PoliToBIOMed Lab, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
| | - Francesco Lacquaniti
- Laboratory of Neuromotor Physiology, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy
- Department of Systems Medicine and Center of Space BioMedicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
| | - Andrea d'Avella
- Department of Biomedical, Dental, Morphological and Functional Imaging Sciences, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
- Laboratory of Neuromotor Physiology, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy
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Vieira TM, Cerone GL, Botter A, Watanabe K, Vigotsky AD. The Sensitivity of Bipolar Electromyograms to Muscle Excitation Scales With the Inter-Electrode Distance. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng 2023; 31:4245-4255. [PMID: 37844006 DOI: 10.1109/tnsre.2023.3325132] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2023]
Abstract
The value of surface electromyograms (EMGs) lies in their potential to non-invasively probe the neuromuscular system. Whether muscle excitation may be accurately inferred from bipolar EMGs depends on how much the detected signal is both sensitive and specific to the excitation of the target muscle. While both are known to be a function of the inter-electrode distance (IED), specificity has been of long concern in the physiological literature. In contrast, sensitivity, at best, has been implicitly assumed. Here we provide evidence that the IED imposes a biophysical constraint on the sensitivity of surface EMG. From 20 healthy subjects, we tested the hypothesis that excessively reducing the IED limits EMGs' physiological content. We detected bipolar EMGs with IEDs varying from 5 mm to 50 mm from two skeletal muscles with distinct architectures, gastrocnemius and biceps brachii. Non-parametric statistics and Bayesian hierarchical modelling were used to evaluate the dependence of the onset of muscle excitation and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on the IED. Experimental results revealed that IED critically affects the sensitivity of bipolar EMGs for both muscles-indeliberately reducing the IED yields EMGs that are not representative of the whole muscle, hampering validity. Simulation results substantiate the generalization of experimental results to small and large electrodes. Based on current and previous findings, we discuss a potentially valid procedure for defining the most appropriate IED for a single bipolar, surface recording-i.e., the distance from the electrode to the target muscle boundary may heuristically serve as a lower bound when choosing an IED.
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Physical and electrophysiological motor unit characteristics are revealed with simultaneous high-density electromyography and ultrafast ultrasound imaging. Sci Rep 2022; 12:8855. [PMID: 35614312 PMCID: PMC9133081 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-12999-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2021] [Accepted: 05/06/2022] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Electromyography and ultrasonography provide complementary information about electrophysiological and physical (i.e. anatomical and mechanical) muscle properties. In this study, we propose a method to assess the electrical and physical properties of single motor units (MUs) by combining High-Density surface Electromyography (HDsEMG) and ultrafast ultrasonography (US). Individual MU firings extracted from HDsEMG were used to identify the corresponding region of muscle tissue displacement in US videos. The time evolution of the tissue velocity in the identified region was regarded as the MU tissue displacement velocity. The method was tested in simulated conditions and applied to experimental signals to study the local association between the amplitude distribution of single MU action potentials and the identified displacement area. We were able to identify the location of simulated MUs in the muscle cross-section within a 2 mm error and to reconstruct the simulated MU displacement velocity (cc > 0.85). Multiple regression analysis of 180 experimental MUs detected during isometric contractions of the biceps brachii revealed a significant association between the identified location of MU displacement areas and the centroid of the EMG amplitude distribution. The proposed approach has the potential to enable non-invasive assessment of the electrical, anatomical, and mechanical properties of single MUs in voluntary contractions.
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Power KE, Lockyer EJ, Botter A, Vieira T, Button DC. Endurance-exercise training adaptations in spinal motoneurones: potential functional relevance to locomotor output and assessment in humans. Eur J Appl Physiol 2022; 122:1367-1381. [PMID: 35226169 DOI: 10.1007/s00421-022-04918-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2021] [Accepted: 02/11/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
It is clear from non-human animal work that spinal motoneurones undergo endurance training (chronic) and locomotor (acute) related changes in their electrical properties and thus their ability to fire action potentials in response to synaptic input. The functional implications of these changes, however, are speculative. In humans, data suggests that similar chronic and acute changes in motoneurone excitability may occur, though the work is limited due to technical constraints. To examine the potential influence of chronic changes in human motoneurone excitability on the acute changes that occur during locomotor output, we must develop more sophisticated recording techniques or adapt our current methods. In this review, we briefly discuss chronic and acute changes in motoneurone excitability arising from non-human and human work. We then discuss the potential interaction effects of chronic and acute changes in motoneurone excitability and the potential impact on locomotor output. Finally, we discuss the use of high-density surface electromyogram recordings to examine human motor unit firing patterns and thus, indirectly, motoneurone excitability. The assessment of single motor units from high-density recording is mainly limited to tonic motor outputs and minimally dynamic motor output such as postural sway. Adapting this technology for use during locomotor outputs would allow us to gain a better understanding of the potential functional implications of endurance training-induced changes in human motoneurone excitability on motor output.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kevin E Power
- Human Neurophysiology Lab, School of Human Kinetics and Recreation, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, A1C 5S7, Canada. .,Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, Canada.
| | - Evan J Lockyer
- Human Neurophysiology Lab, School of Human Kinetics and Recreation, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, A1C 5S7, Canada.,Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, Canada
| | - Alberto Botter
- Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System (LISiN), Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy.,PoliToBIOMed Lab, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
| | - Taian Vieira
- Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System (LISiN), Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy.,PoliToBIOMed Lab, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
| | - Duane C Button
- Human Neurophysiology Lab, School of Human Kinetics and Recreation, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, A1C 5S7, Canada.,Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, Canada
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Formento E, Botros P, Carmena JM. Skilled independent control of individual motor units via a non-invasive neuromuscular-machine interface. J Neural Eng 2021; 18. [PMID: 34727532 DOI: 10.1088/1741-2552/ac35ac] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2021] [Accepted: 11/02/2021] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
Objective.Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) have the potential to augment human functions and restore independence in people with disabilities, yet a compromise between non-invasiveness and performance limits their relevance.Approach.Here, we hypothesized that a non-invasive neuromuscular-machine interface providing real-time neurofeedback of individual motor units within a muscle could enable independent motor unit control to an extent suitable for high-performance BMI applications.Main results.Over 6 days of training, eight participants progressively learned to skillfully and independently control three biceps brachii motor units to complete a 2D center-out task. We show that neurofeedback enabled motor unit activity that largely violated recruitment constraints observed during ramp-and-hold isometric contractions thought to limit individual motor unit controllability. Finally, participants demonstrated the suitability of individual motor units for powering general applications through a spelling task.Significance.These results illustrate the flexibility of the sensorimotor system and highlight individual motor units as a promising source of control for BMI applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emanuele Formento
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States of America
| | - Paul Botros
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States of America
| | - Jose M Carmena
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States of America.,Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States of America
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Hallett M, DelRosso LM, Elble R, Ferri R, Horak FB, Lehericy S, Mancini M, Matsuhashi M, Matsumoto R, Muthuraman M, Raethjen J, Shibasaki H. Evaluation of movement and brain activity. Clin Neurophysiol 2021; 132:2608-2638. [PMID: 34488012 PMCID: PMC8478902 DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2021.04.023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2021] [Revised: 04/07/2021] [Accepted: 04/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Clinical neurophysiology studies can contribute important information about the physiology of human movement and the pathophysiology and diagnosis of different movement disorders. Some techniques can be accomplished in a routine clinical neurophysiology laboratory and others require some special equipment. This review, initiating a series of articles on this topic, focuses on the methods and techniques. The methods reviewed include EMG, EEG, MEG, evoked potentials, coherence, accelerometry, posturography (balance), gait, and sleep studies. Functional MRI (fMRI) is also reviewed as a physiological method that can be used independently or together with other methods. A few applications to patients with movement disorders are discussed as examples, but the detailed applications will be the subject of other articles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Hallett
- Human Motor Control Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.
| | | | - Rodger Elble
- Department of Neurology, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield, IL, USA
| | | | - Fay B Horak
- Department of Neurology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA
| | - Stephan Lehericy
- Paris Brain Institute (ICM), Centre de NeuroImagerie de Recherche (CENIR), Team "Movement, Investigations and Therapeutics" (MOV'IT), INSERM U 1127, CNRS UMR 7225, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
| | - Martina Mancini
- Department of Neurology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA
| | - Masao Matsuhashi
- Department of Epilepsy, Movement Disorders and Physiology, Kyoto University Graduate, School of Medicine, Japan
| | - Riki Matsumoto
- Division of Neurology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan
| | - Muthuraman Muthuraman
- Section of Movement Disorders and Neurostimulation, Biomedical Statistics and Multimodal Signal Processing unit, Department of Neurology, Focus Program Translational Neuroscience (FTN), University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany
| | - Jan Raethjen
- Neurology Outpatient Clinic, Preusserstr. 1-9, 24105 Kiel, Germany
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Yu Y, Chen C, Sheng X, Zhu X. Wrist Torque Estimation via Electromyographic Motor Unit Decomposition and Image Reconstruction. IEEE J Biomed Health Inform 2021; 25:2557-2566. [PMID: 33264096 DOI: 10.1109/jbhi.2020.3041861] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Neural interface using decomposed motor units (MUs) from surface electromyography (sEMG) has allowed non-invasive access to the neural control signals, and provided a novel approach for intuitive human-machine interaction. However, most of the existing methods based on decomposed MUs merely adopted the discharge rate (DR) as the feature representations, which may lack local information around the discharge instant and ignore the subtle interactions of different MUs. In this study, we proposed an MU-specific image-based scheme for wrist torque estimation. Specifically, the high-density sEMG signals were decoded into motor unit spike trains (MUSTs), and then MU-specific images were reconstructed with MUSTs and corresponding motor unit action potential (MUAP). A convolutional neural network was used to learn representative features from MU-specific images automatically, and further to estimate wrist torques. The results demonstrated that the proposed method outperformed three conventional and a deep-learning regression approaches using DR features, with the estimation accuracy R2 of 0.82 ± 0.09, 0.89 ± 0.06, and nRMSE of 12.6 ± 2.5%, 11.0 ± 3.1% for pronation/supination and flexion/extension, respectively. Further, the analysis of the extracted features from MU-specific images showed a higher correlation than DR for recorded torques, indicating the effectiveness of the proposed method. The outcomes of this study provide a novel and promising perspective for the intuitive control of neural interfacing.
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