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Aoyama T, Ae K, Taguchi T, Kawamori Y, Sasaki D, Kawamura T, Kohno Y. Spatiotemporal patterns of throwing muscle synergies in yips-affected baseball players. Sci Rep 2024; 14:2649. [PMID: 38302478 PMCID: PMC10834996 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-52332-9] [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] [Received: 05/11/2023] [Accepted: 01/17/2024] [Indexed: 02/03/2024] Open
Abstract
"Yips" are involuntary movements that interfere with the automatic execution of sports movements. However, how the coordination among the various muscles necessary for sports movements is impaired in athletes with yips remains to be fully understood. This study aimed to assess whether muscle synergy analysis through non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) could identify impaired spatiotemporal muscle coordination in baseball players with throwing yips. Twenty-two college baseball players, including 12 with and 10 without yips symptoms participated in the study. Electromyographic activity was recorded from 13 ipsilateral upper extremity muscles during full-effort throwing. Muscle synergies were extracted through NMF. Cluster analysis was conducted to identify any common spatiotemporal patterns of muscle synergies in players with yips. Whether individual players with yips showed deviations in spatiotemporal patterns of muscle synergies compared with control players was also investigated. Four muscle synergies were extracted for each player, but none were specific to the yips group. However, a more detailed analysis of individual players revealed that two of the three players who presented dystonic symptoms during the experiment exhibited specific patterns that differed from those in control players. By contrast, each player whose symptoms were not reproduced during the experiment presented spatiotemporal patterns of muscle synergies similar to those of the control group. The results of this study indicate no common spatiotemporal pattern of muscle synergies specific to the yips group. Furthermore, these results suggest that the spatiotemporal pattern of muscle synergies in baseball throwing motion is not impaired in situations where symptoms are not reproduced even if the players have yips symptoms. However, muscle synergy analysis can identify the characteristics of muscle coordination of players who exhibit dystonic movements. These findings can be useful in developing personalized therapeutic strategies based on individual characteristics of yips symptoms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Toshiyuki Aoyama
- Department of Physical Therapy, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences, 4669-2 Ami, Ami-Machi, Inashiki-gun, Ibaraki, Japan.
| | - Kazumichi Ae
- Faculty of Sport Science, Nippon Sport Science University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Takahiro Taguchi
- Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
| | - Yuna Kawamori
- Department of Physical Therapy, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences, 4669-2 Ami, Ami-Machi, Inashiki-gun, Ibaraki, Japan
| | - Daisuke Sasaki
- Department of Physical Therapy, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences, 4669-2 Ami, Ami-Machi, Inashiki-gun, Ibaraki, Japan
| | - Takashi Kawamura
- Institute of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
| | - Yutaka Kohno
- Centre for Medical Sciences, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences, Ami, Japan
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Fazzari C, Macchi R, Kunimasa Y, Ressam C, Casanova R, Chavet P, Nicol C. Muscle synergies inherent in simulated hypogravity running reveal flexible but not unconstrained locomotor control. Sci Rep 2024; 14:2707. [PMID: 38302569 PMCID: PMC10834966 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-50076-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2023] [Accepted: 12/15/2023] [Indexed: 02/03/2024] Open
Abstract
With human space exploration back in the spotlight, recent studies have investigated the neuromuscular adjustments to simulated hypogravity running. They have examined the activity of individual muscles, whereas the central nervous system may rather activate groups of functionally related muscles, known as muscle synergies. To understand how locomotor control adjusts to simulated hypogravity, we examined the temporal (motor primitives) and spatial (motor modules) components of muscle synergies in participants running sequentially at 100%, 60%, and 100% body weight on a treadmill. Our results highlighted the paradoxical nature of simulated hypogravity running: The reduced mechanical constraints allowed for a more flexible locomotor control, which correlated with the degree of spatiotemporal adjustments. Yet, the increased temporal (shortened stance phase) and sensory (deteriorated proprioceptive feedback) constraints required wider motor primitives and a higher contribution of the hamstring muscles during the stance phase. These results are a first step towards improving astronaut training protocols.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Robin Macchi
- Aix-Marseille Univ, CNRS, ISM, Marseille, France
- French Institute of Sport (INSEP), Laboratory Sport, Expertise and Performance (EA 7370), Paris, France
| | | | - Camélia Ressam
- NeuroSpin, UMR CEA/CNRS 9027, Paris-Saclay University, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
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Guillaud E, Leconte V, Doat E, Guehl D, Cazalets JR. Sensorimotor adaptation of locomotor synergies to gravitational constraint. NPJ Microgravity 2024; 10:5. [PMID: 38212311 PMCID: PMC10784505 DOI: 10.1038/s41526-024-00350-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2023] [Accepted: 01/03/2024] [Indexed: 01/13/2024] Open
Abstract
This study investigates the impact of gravity on lower limb muscle coordination during pedaling. It explores how pedaling behaviors, kinematics, and muscle activation patterns dynamically adapts to changes in gravity and resistance levels. The experiment was conducted in parabolic flights, simulating microgravity, hypergravity (1.8 g), and normogravity conditions. Participants pedaled on an ergometer with varying resistances. The goal was to identify potential changes in muscle synergies and activation strategies under different gravitational contexts. Results indicate that pedaling cadence adjusted naturally in response to both gravity and resistance changes. Cadence increased with higher gravity and decreased with higher resistance levels. Muscular activities were characterized by two synergies representing pull and push phases of pedaling. The timing of synergy activation was influenced by gravity, with a delay in activation observed in microgravity compared to other conditions. Despite these changes, the velocity profile of pedaling remained stable across gravity conditions. The findings strongly suggest that the CNS dynamically manages the shift in body weight by finely tuning muscular coordination, thereby ensuring the maintenance of a stable motor output. Furthermore, electromyography analysis suggest that neuromuscular discharge frequencies were not affected by gravity changes. This implies that the types of muscle fibers recruited during exercise in modified gravity are similar to those used in normogravity. This research has contributed to a better understanding of how the human locomotor system responds to varying gravitational conditions, shedding light on the potential mechanisms underlying astronauts' gait changes upon returning from space missions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Etienne Guillaud
- Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, INCIA, UMR 5287, F-33000, Bordeaux, France.
| | - Vincent Leconte
- Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, INCIA, UMR 5287, F-33000, Bordeaux, France
| | - Emilie Doat
- Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, INCIA, UMR 5287, F-33000, Bordeaux, France
| | - Dominique Guehl
- Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, IMN, UMR 5293, F-33000, Bordeaux, France
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Aoyama T, Ae K, Kohno Y. Interindividual differences in upper limb muscle synergies during baseball throwing motion in male college baseball players. J Biomech 2022; 145:111384. [PMID: 36403527 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2022.111384] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2022] [Revised: 09/21/2022] [Accepted: 11/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Throwing is a fundamental human motor behavior that has evolved to aid hunting and defense against predators. In modern humans, accurate throwing is an important skill required in many sports. However, the spatiotemporal coordination of muscles during baseball throwing has not been fully elucidated. We herein aimed to identify the muscle synergies involved in baseball throwing and determine whether their spatiotemporal patterns are shared among individuals. Ten college baseball players participated in this study. Electromyographic activity was recorded from 13 ipsilateral upper limb muscles during throwing using full effort. Non-negative matrix factorization was used to extract the motor module composition and temporal activation patterns during baseball throwing, followed by k-means analysis to cluster the extracted motor modules based on their similarity. Four motor modules were extracted for each player. These were classified into four clusters (Clusters 1-4), each reaching the peak activity sequentially from the early cocking phase to ball release. Spatiotemporal interindividual similarity in the muscle synergy cluster comprising the muscles activated during the transition from early cocking to late cocking (Cluster 2) was significantly lower than that in the other clusters. There was no individual-specific muscle synergy. These results suggest that the skilled baseball throwing motion acquired through years of practice may consist of four basic muscle synergies that are common among individuals with some differences in their spatiotemporal patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Toshiyuki Aoyama
- Department of Physical Therapy, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences, 4669-2 Ami, Ami-Machi, Inashiki-gun, Ibaraki, Japan.
| | - Kazumichi Ae
- Nippon Sport Science University, 7-1-1 Fukasawa, Setagaya-ward, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Yutaka Kohno
- Centre for Medical Sciences, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences, 4669-2 Ami, Ami-Machi, Inashiki-gun, Ibaraki, Japan
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Troisi Lopez E, Sorrentino P, Liparoti M, Minino R, Polverino A, Romano A, Carotenuto A, Amico E, Sorrentino G. The kinectome: A comprehensive kinematic map of human motion in health and disease. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2022; 1516:247-261. [PMID: 35838306 PMCID: PMC9796708 DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14860] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
Human voluntary movement stems from the coordinated activations in space and time of many musculoskeletal segments. However, the current methodological approaches to study human movement are still limited to the evaluation of the synergies among a few body elements. Network science can be a useful approach to describe movement as a whole and to extract features that are relevant to understanding both its complex physiology and the pathophysiology of movement disorders. Here, we propose to represent human movement as a network (that we named the kinectome), where nodes represent body points, and edges are defined as the correlations of the accelerations between each pair of them. We applied this framework to healthy individuals and patients with Parkinson's disease, observing that the patients' kinectomes display less symmetrical patterns as compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, we used the kinectomes to successfully identify both healthy and diseased subjects using short gait recordings. Finally, we highlighted topological features that predict the individual clinical impairment in patients. Our results define a novel approach to study human movement. While deceptively simple, this approach is well-grounded, and represents a powerful tool that may be applied to a wide spectrum of frameworks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emahnuel Troisi Lopez
- Department of Motor Sciences and WellnessUniversity of Naples “Parthenope”NaplesItaly
| | | | - Marianna Liparoti
- Department of Developmental and Social PsychologyUniversity “La Sapienza” of RomeRomeItaly
| | - Roberta Minino
- Department of Motor Sciences and WellnessUniversity of Naples “Parthenope”NaplesItaly
| | - Arianna Polverino
- Institute for Diagnosis and TreatmentHermitage CapodimonteNaplesItaly
| | - Antonella Romano
- Department of Motor Sciences and WellnessUniversity of Naples “Parthenope”NaplesItaly
| | - Anna Carotenuto
- Alzheimer Unit and Movement Disorders ClinicDepartment of NeurologyCardarelli HospitalNaplesItaly
| | - Enrico Amico
- Institute of Bioengineering, Center for NeuroprostheticsEPFLGenevaSwitzerland,Department of Radiology and Medical InformaticsUniversity of Geneva (UNIGE)GenevaSwitzerland
| | - Giuseppe Sorrentino
- Department of Motor Sciences and WellnessUniversity of Naples “Parthenope”NaplesItaly,Institute for Diagnosis and TreatmentHermitage CapodimonteNaplesItaly,Institute of Applied Sciences and Intelligent SystemsCNRPozzuoliItaly
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Hagio S, Ishihara A, Terada M, Tanabe H, Kibushi B, Higashibata A, Yamada S, Furukawa S, Mukai C, Ishioka N, Kouzaki M. Muscle synergies of multi-directional postural control in astronauts on Earth after a long-term stay in space. J Neurophysiol 2022; 127:1230-1239. [PMID: 35353615 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00232.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Movements of the human biological system have adapted to the physical environment under the 1-g gravitational force on Earth. However, the effects of microgravity in space on the underlying functional neuromuscular control behaviors remain poorly understood. Here, we aimed to elucidate the effects of prolonged exposure to a microgravity environment on the functional coordination of multiple muscle activities. The activities of 16 lower limb muscles of 5 astronauts who stayed in space for at least 3 months were recorded while they maintained multidirectional postural control during bipedal standing. The coordinated activation patterns of groups of muscles, i.e., muscle synergies, were estimated from the muscle activation datasets using a factorization algorithm. The experiments were repeated a total of 5 times for each astronaut, once before and 4 times after spaceflight. The compositions of muscle synergies were altered, with a constant number of synergies, after long-term exposure to microgravity, and the extent of the changes was correlated with the severity of the deficits in postural stability. Furthermore, the muscle synergies extracted 3 months after the return were similar in their activation profile but not in their muscle composition compared with those extracted in the preflight condition. These results suggest that the modularity in the neuromuscular system became reorganized to adapt to the microgravity environment and then possibly reoptimized to the new sensorimotor environment after the astronauts were re-exposed to a gravitational force. It is expected that muscle synergies can be used as physiological markers of the status of astronauts with gravity-dependent change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shota Hagio
- Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.,Unit of Synergetic Studies for Space, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Akihiko Ishihara
- Laboratory of Cell Biology and Life Science, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Masahiro Terada
- Unit of Synergetic Studies for Space, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Hiroko Tanabe
- Institutes of Innovation for Future Society, Nagoya University, Aichi, Japan
| | - Benio Kibushi
- Faculty of Sport Science, Waseda University, Saitama, Japan
| | - Akira Higashibata
- Human Spaceflight Technology Directorate, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Ibaraki, Japan
| | - Shin Yamada
- Graduate School of Medicine, Kyorin University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Satoshi Furukawa
- Human Spaceflight Technology Directorate, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Ibaraki, Japan
| | - Chiaki Mukai
- Human Spaceflight Technology Directorate, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Ibaraki, Japan
| | - Noriaki Ishioka
- Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Kanagawa, Japan
| | - Motoki Kouzaki
- Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.,Unit of Synergetic Studies for Space, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
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