Zhao K, Zhang Z, Wen H, Scano A. Intra-Subject and Inter-Subject Movement Variability Quantified with Muscle Synergies in Upper-Limb Reaching Movements.
Biomimetics (Basel) 2021;
6:63. [PMID:
34698082 PMCID:
PMC8544238 DOI:
10.3390/biomimetics6040063]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2021] [Revised: 10/13/2021] [Accepted: 10/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Quantifying movement variability is a crucial aspect for clinical and laboratory investigations in several contexts. However, very few studies have assessed, in detail, the intra-subject variability across movements and the inter-subject variability. Muscle synergies are a valuable method that can be used to assess such variability. In this study, we assess, in detail, intra-subject and inter-subject variability in a scenario based on a comprehensive dataset, including multiple repetitions of multi-directional reaching movements. The results show that muscle synergies are a valuable tool for quantifying variability at the muscle level and reveal that intra-subject variability is lower than inter-subject variability in synergy modules and related temporal coefficients, and both intra-subject and inter-subject similarity are higher than random synergy matching, confirming shared underlying control structures. The study deepens the available knowledge on muscle synergy-based motor function assessment and rehabilitation applications, discussing their applicability to real scenarios.
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