Two Kinematic Synergies in Voluntary Whole-Body Movements During Standing

Biomimetic learning of hand gestures in a humanoid robot

Hand gestures are a natural and intuitive form of communication, and integrating this communication method into robotic systems presents significant potential to improve human-robot collaboration. Recent advances in motor neuroscience have focused on replicating human hand movements from synergies also known as movement primitives. Synergies, fundamental building blocks of movement, serve as a potential strategy adapted by the central nervous system to generate and control movements. Identifying how synergies contribute to movement can help in dexterous control of robotics, exoskeletons, prosthetics and extend its applications to rehabilitation. In this paper, 33 static hand gestures were recorded through a single RGB camera and identified in real-time through the MediaPipe framework as participants made various postures with their dominant hand. Assuming an open palm as initial posture, uniform joint angular velocities were obtained from all these gestures. By applying a dimensionality reduction method, kinematic synergies were obtained from these joint angular velocities. Kinematic synergies that explain 98% of variance of movements were utilized to reconstruct new hand gestures using convex optimization. Reconstructed hand gestures and selected kinematic synergies were translated onto a humanoid robot, Mitra, in real-time, as the participants demonstrated various hand gestures. The results showed that by using only few kinematic synergies it is possible to generate various hand gestures, with 95.7% accuracy. Furthermore, utilizing low-dimensional synergies in control of high dimensional end effectors holds promise to enable near-natural human-robot collaboration.

Experience influences kinematic motor synergies: an Uncontrolled manifold approach to simulated Nordic skiing

Motor synergies are defined as central nervous system mechanisms which adjust participating degrees of freedom to ensure dynamic stability (control) of certain performance variables and have been identified during many motor tasks. The potential for synergistic control of individual segments during full-body tasks is often overlooked. Thus, this study compared individual differences in the potential stabilization of multiple performance variables on the basis of experience during a full-body sport activity. Normalized time series of synergy indices from Uncontrolled Manifold analyses on experienced (n = 9) and inexperienced (n = 19) participants were analysed using statistical parametric mapping during simulated Nordic skiing. Regardless of experience, hand, upper arm, and whole-body centre of mass (COM) kinematics were found to be stabilized by kinematic motor synergies. Only experienced Nordic skiers stabilized trunk COM position at all, while trunk COM velocity was stabilized for a longer duration than inexperienced participants. However, inexperienced participants stabilized hand velocity for a greater duration overall and to a greater magnitude during early pull phase than the experienced skiers. That motor synergies for hand and trunk COM velocity differed between experience groups suggests potential utility for these performance variables as indicators of motor skill development for full-body tasks such as Nordic skiing.

Synergies Stabilizing Vertical Posture in Spaces of Control Variables

In this study, we address the question: Can the central nervous system stabilize vertical posture in the abundant space of neural commands? We assume that the control of vertical posture is associated with setting spatial referent coordinates (RC) for the involved muscle groups, which translates into two basic commands, reciprocal and co-activation. We explored whether the two commands co-varied across trials to stabilize the initial postural state. Young, healthy participants stood quietly against an external horizontal load and were exposed to smooth unloading episodes. Linear regression between horizontal force and center of mass coordinate during the unloading phase was computed to define the intercept (RC) and slope (apparent stiffness, k). Hyperbolic regression between the intercept and slope across unloading episodes and randomization analysis both demonstrated high indexes of co-variation stabilizing horizontal force in the initial state. Higher co-variation indexes were associated with lower average k values across the participants suggesting destabilizing effects of muscle coactivation. Analysis of deviations in the {RC; k} space keeping the posture unchanged (motor equivalent) between two states separated by a voluntary quick body sway showed significantly larger motor equivalent deviations compared to non-motor equivalent ones. This is the first study demonstrating posture-stabilizing synergies in the space of neural control variables using various computational methods. It promises direct applications to studies of postural disorders and rehabilitation.

Kinematic synergies in over-ground slip recovery outcomes: Distinct strategies or a single strategy?

BACKGROUND

After experiencing an unexpected slip perturbation, individuals' behavioral performance can be classified into three categories: recovery, feet-forward fall, and split fall. Researchers are uncertain whether these differences in slip outcomes are due to distinct strategies or part of a single strategy.

RESEARCH QUESTION

Whether older adults with different behavioral outcomes during their novel slip have different kinematic synergies?

METHODS

The kinematic synergies were extracted from segment angles in 87 participants using principal component analysis (PCA). The first two principal components (PC1 and PC2) in pre-slip, early-reactive, and late-reactive phases were compared across different slip outcomes.

RESULTS

Results showed that the kinematic synergies in pre-slip and early-reactive phases are highly consistent among the three outcomes (recovery, split fall, and feet-forward fall). For the late-reactive phase, both split falls and feet-forward falls showed different kinematics synergies from recoveries.

SIGNIFICANCE

Our findings indicated that a single strategy might be used for different slip outcomes in the pre-slip and early-reactive phases, while distinct strategies were used by fallers compared to recovered individuals. Specifically, larger trunk flexion in pre-slip phase, larger knee flexion and plantar flexion of the slipping limb in both early-reactive and late-reactive phase, and larger knee extension of the recovery limb in late-reactive phase would lower the fall risk. This study would help to assess the vulnerabilities in control strategy, according to which individualized treatment could be provided to reduce predisposition to specific types of falls.

Effects of Visual Cue Deprivation Balance Training with Head Control on Balance and Gait Function in Stroke Patients

Background and Objectives: Visual cue deprivation is the instability of head control is increased. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of visual cue deprivation balance training by applying head control feedback to the balance and gait ability of stroke patients. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted on 41 patients diagnosed with hemiplegia due to stroke. Subjects were randomly assigned to any of the following groups: the experimental group I, the experimental group II or the control group. The randomization method used a simple randomization method. To evaluate changes in balance function, a LOS (Limit of Stability) and a BBS (Berg Balance Scale) were performed. In addition, to evaluate changes in ST (stride time), SL (stride length), and cadence, a LEGSys were performed. Results: A two-way repeated ANOVA was conducted to analyze the differences between groups. There were significant differences between groups in all variables for the balance function. There were significant differences between groups in all variables for the balance function. There were significant differences between groups in SL and cadence for the gait function. Conclusions: Visual cue deprivation balance training applying head control feedback is effective in improving dynamic balance ability and cadence. It is necessary to constantly maintain the head orientation by feedback and to properly control the head movement.

Influence of Controlled Stomatognathic Motor Activity on Sway, Control and Stability of the Center of Mass During Dynamic Steady-State Balance—An Uncontrolled Manifold Analysis

Multiple sensory signals from visual, somatosensory and vestibular systems are used for human postural control. To maintain postural stability, the central nervous system keeps the center of mass (CoM) within the base of support. The influence of the stomatognathic motor system on postural control has been established under static conditions, but it has not yet been investigated during dynamic steady-state balance. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of controlled stomatognathic motor activity on the control and stability of the CoM during dynamic steady-state balance. A total of 48 physically active and healthy adults were assigned to three groups with different stomatognathic motor conditions: jaw clenching, tongue pressing and habitual stomatognathic behavior. Dynamic steady-state balance was assessed using an oscillating platform and the kinematic data were collected with a 3D motion capturing system. The path length (PL) of the 3D CoM trajectory was used for quantifying CoM sway. Temporal dynamics of the CoM movement was assessed with a detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). An uncontrolled manifold (UCM) analysis was applied to assess the stability and control of the CoM with a subject-specific anthropometric 3D model. The statistical analysis revealed that the groups did not differ significantly in PL, DFA scaling exponents or UCM parameters. The results indicated that deliberate jaw clenching or tongue pressing did not seem to affect the sway, control or stability of the CoM on an oscillating platform significantly. Because of the task-specificity of balance, further research investigating the effects of stomatognathic motor activities on dynamic steady-state balance with different movement tasks are needed. Additionally, further analysis by use of muscle synergies or co-contractions may reveal effects on the level of muscles, which were not visible on the level of kinematics. This study can contribute to the understanding of postural control mechanisms, particularly in relation to stomatognathic motor activities and under dynamic conditions.

A Vexing Question in Motor Control: The Degrees of Freedom Problem

The human “marionette” is extremely complex and multi-articulated: anatomical redundancy (in terms of Degrees of Freedom: DoFs), kinematic redundancy (movements can have different trajectories, velocities, and accelerations and yet achieve the same goal, according to the principle of Motor Equivalence), and neurophysiological redundancy (many more muscles than DoFs and multiple motor units for each muscle). Although it is quite obvious that such abundance is not noxious at all because, in contrast, it is instrumental for motor learning, allowing the nervous system to “explore” the space of feasible actions before settling on an elegant and possibly optimal solution, the crucial question then boils down to figure out how the nervous system “chooses/selects/recruits/modulates” task-dependent subsets of countless assemblies of DoFs as functional motor synergies. Despite this daunting conceptual riddle, human purposive behavior in daily life activities is a proof of concept that solutions can be found easily and quickly by the embodied brain of the human cognitive agent. The point of view suggested in this essay is to frame the question above in the old-fashioned but still seminal observation by Marr and Poggio that cognitive agents should be regarded as Generalized Information Processing Systems (GIPS) and should be investigated according to three nearly independent but complementary levels of analysis: 1) the computational level, 2) the algorithmic level, and 3) the implementation level. In this framework, we attempt to discriminate as well as aggregate the different hypotheses and solutions proposed so far: the optimal control hypothesis, the muscle synergy hypothesis, the equilibrium point hypothesis, or the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis, to mention the most popular ones. The proposed GIPS follows the strategy of factoring out shaping and timing by adopting a force-field based approach (the Passive Motion Paradigm) that is inspired by the Equilibrium Point Hypothesis, extended in such a way to represent covert as well overt actions. In particular, it is shown how this approach can explain spatio-temporal invariances and, at the same time, solve the Degrees of Freedom Problem.

Postural Adjustments during Interactions with an Active Partner

Ensuring stability of the human vertical posture is a complex task requiring both anticipatory and compensatory postural strategies when a standing person performs fast actions and interacts with the environment, which can include other persons. How people adjust their preparatory and compensatory postural adjustments in situations when they interact with an active partner is still poorly understood. In this study we investigated the postural adjustments while two healthy persons played a traditional childhood game. While standing facing each other, they were asked to push with their hands against the hands of the opponent only, and to make the opponent to take a step. We explored strategies when pushing the opponent's hands generated perturbations to the posture of both players and when one of the players withdrew the arms to neutralize the opponent's pushing action. Electromyograms were recorded from the leg and trunk muscles and used to quantify early (EPAs), anticipatory (APAs) and compensatory (CPAs) postural adjustments, as well as the co-activation and reciprocal changes in the activity of agonist-antagonist pairs. Results showed higher indices of muscle co-activation during EPAs during the game compared to the control conditions. We found that postural preparation strategies defined whether a participant kept or lost balance during the game. Our results highlight the importance of muscle co-activation, the role of anticipation, and the difference in strategies while interacting with an active partner as compared to interactions with passive objects.

The Effect of Combined Treatment of Chiropractic and Shoulder Flexibility Exercises on the Balance Ability of the Deformed Cervical Alignment Subjects

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of changes in cervical alignment on balance ability, to correct cervical alignment, and to present effective interventional variables that can improve balance ability.METHODS Group 1 (Deformed cervical alignment group, n = 16) and Group 2 (Normal cervical alignment group, n = 16). The subjects measured their balance ability before and after treatment with chiropractic and shoulder flexibility exercises. Balance ability was measured by static balance and dynamic balance. For Group 1, chiropractic was treated once a week for 15 minutes, and shoulder flexibility exercise was treated three times a week for one hour. The pre- and post-measurement results of Group 1 were compared with Group 2, and differences among groups and groups were analyzed. The test method was tested with the Independent t-test and Paired t-test.RESULTS Group 1 showed a significant reduction (p<0.04) in the distance between the 7th cervical spine and gravity line, showing an improvement in cervical alignment. In the static equilibrium, the significant difference that was measured beforehand disappeared and the sum of deflection decreased. The dynamic balance did not disappear significantly but the balance ability improved as the sum of deflection decreased.CONCLUSIONS The cervical alignment deformation affects the balance ability. A combination of cervical alignment correction and exercise to increase the flexibility of the shoulder and neck muscles were performed. As a result, it was a factor in improving the static balance and dynamic balance ability of the left and right sides of the cervical spine.

Dance training improves the CNS's ability to utilize the redundant degrees of freedom of the whole body

Professional dancers demonstrate an amazing ability to control their balance. However, little is known about how they coordinate their body segments for such superior control. In this study, we investigated how dancers coordinate body segments when a physical perturbation is given to their body. A custom-made machine was used to provide a short pulling impulse at the waist in the anterior direction to ten dancers and ten non-dancers. We used Uncontrolled Manifold analysis to quantify the variability in the task-relevant space and task-irrelevant space within the multi-dimensional space made up of individual segments’ centers of mass with a velocity adjustment. The dancers demonstrated greater utilization of redundant degrees of freedom (DoFs) supported by the greater task-irrelevant variability as compared to non-dancers. These findings suggest that long-term specialized dance training can improve the central nervous system’s ability to utilize the redundant DoFs in the whole-body system.

Adjustments in end-effector trajectory and underlying joint angle synergies after a target switch: Order of adjustment is flexible

Goal-directed reaching adapts to meet changing task requirements after unexpected perturbations such as a sudden switch of target location. Literature on adaptive behavior using a target switch has primarily focused on adjustments of the end-effector trajectory, addressing proposed feedback and feedforward processes in planning adjusted actions. Starting from a dynamical systems approach to motor coordination, the current paper focusses on coordination of joint angles after a target switch, which has received little attention in the literature. We argue that joint angles are coordinated in synergies, temporary task-specific units emerging from interactions amongst task, organism, and environmental constraints. We asked whether after a target switch: i) joint angles were coordinated in synergies, ii) joint angles were coordinated in a different synergy than the synergy used when moving to the original target, and iii) synergies or end-effector trajectory was adjusted first. Participants (N = 12) performed manual reaching movements toward a target on a table (stationary target trials), where in some trials the target could unexpectedly switch to a new location (switch trials). Results showed that the end-effector curved to the switched target. Joint angles were synergistically organized as shown by the large extent of co-variation based on Uncontrolled Manifold analyses. At the end of the target switch movement, joint angle configurations differed from the joint angle configurations used to move to the original stationary target. Hence, we argue, a new synergy emerged after the target switch. The order of adjustment in the synergies and in the end-effector was flexible within participants, though most often synergies were adjusted first. These findings support the two-step framework of Kay (1988) to understand the coordination of abundant degrees of freedom and to explain adaptive actions. The flexibility in the order of adjustments of synergies suggests that the coordination of DOF emerges from self-organization.

Compensation of stochastic time-continuous perturbations during walking in healthy young adults: An analysis of the structure of gait variability

BACKGROUND

During everyday locomotion, we cope with various internal or external perturbations (e.g. uneven surface). Uncertainty exists on how unpredictable external perturbations increase noise within the motor system and if they are compensated by employing covariation of the limb joints or rather due to decreased sensitivity of an altered posture.

RESEARCH QUESTION

Do continuous stochastic perturbations affect the structure of gait variability in young and healthy adults?

METHODS

In a cross-over study, gait kinematics of 21 healthy young sports students were registered during treadmill walking with and without continuous stochastic perturbations. Using the TNC method, the following aspects were analyzed: (a) the sensitivity of body posture to perturbations ('tolerance') decreasing gait variability, (b) the unstructured motor 'noise' increasing gait variability and (c) the amount of 'covariation' of the limb joints.

RESULTS

Compared to normal walking, gait variability was significantly increased (p < .001) during walking with perturbations. The negative effect of noise was partly compensated by improved 'covariation' of leg joints (p < .001). The aspect 'tolerance' had a small effect on increasing gait variability during stance phase (p < .001) and decreasing gait variability during swing phase (p < .001).

SIGNIFICANCE

Increased motor noise due to external perturbations is partly compensated by improved covariation of the limb joints. However, the effect of an altered posture slightly affects gait variability. Further studies should focus on different populations (e.g. older participants) to see if they use the same mechanism (improved covariation) to compensate for stochastic perturbations.

Motor Behavior Concepts in the Study of Balance: A Scoping Review

Previous research suggests that using Fitts' law; attentional focus or challenge point framework (CPF) is beneficial in balance control studies. A scoping review was conducted to examine studies that utilized these motor behavior concepts during balance control tasks. An extensive literature search was performed up to January 2018. Two independent reviewers conducted a study selection process followed by data extraction of the search results. Forty-six studies were identified, with 2 studies related to CPF, 12 studies related to Fitts' law and 32 studies related to focus of attention. The CPF appears to be a useful method for designing a progressive therapeutic program. Fitts' law can be used as a tool for controlling the difficulty of motor tasks. Focus of attention studies indicate that adopting an external focus of attention improves task performance. Overall, studies included in this review report benefit when using the selected motor behavior concepts. However, the majority (>80%) of studies included in the review involved healthy populations, with only three clinical trials. In order to ascertain the benefits of the selected motor behavior concepts in clinical settings, future research should focus on using these concepts for clinical trials to examine balance control among people with balance impairments.

Adaptation of kinematic synergy and postural control to mechanical ankle constraint on an unsteady stance surface

Joint constraint interferes with the coordinative structure in joint movements used to optimize postural stability. This study aimed to investigate changes in postural synergy when the ankle joints were bilaterally braced during a stabilometer stance. Twenty-four young adults stood on a stabilometer plate while wearing a pair of ankle-foot orthoses, which were either unlocked or locked to restrict ankle motion (the ankle constraint (AC) and non-constraint (NC) conditions). Although ankle constraint did not significantly affect the dynamics of the stabilometer movements, the size and regularity of the first principal component (PC1), which explained more than 80% of the variance of joint movements in the lower limb, were increased. In addition, PC1 exhibited higher communalities with angular movements of the knee and hip joints in the AC condition than in the NC condition. Those subjects who exhibited a constraint-induced increase in postural sway (the I group) showed greater increases in the size and regularity of PC1 than did those who exhibited reduced postural sway during ankle constraint (the D group). Constraint-induced changes in postural synergy were group-dependent. Only the I group exhibited an increase of communality of PC1 with the hip angular movement following bilateral ankle constraint. In summary, bilateral ankle constraint altered the coordination solution, with increasing reliance on compensatory knee movement to maintain a balanced posture on the stabilometer. However, accessory hip movement due to ankle constraint was not economical and was disadvantageous to stance stability.

Adaptive Control Strategies for Interlimb Coordination in Legged Robots: A Review

Walking animals produce adaptive interlimb coordination during locomotion in accordance with their situation. Interlimb coordination is generated through the dynamic interactions of the neural system, the musculoskeletal system, and the environment, although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Recently, investigations of the adaptation mechanisms of living beings have attracted attention, and bio-inspired control systems based on neurophysiological findings regarding sensorimotor interactions are being developed for legged robots. In this review, we introduce adaptive interlimb coordination for legged robots induced by various factors (locomotion speed, environmental situation, body properties, and task). In addition, we show characteristic properties of adaptive interlimb coordination, such as gait hysteresis and different time-scale adaptations. We also discuss the underlying mechanisms and control strategies to achieve adaptive interlimb coordination and the design principle for the control system of legged robots.

On identifying kinematic and muscle synergies: a comparison of matrix factorization methods using experimental data from the healthy population

Human motor behavior is highly goal directed, requiring the central nervous system to coordinate different aspects of motion generation to achieve the motion goals. The concept of motor synergies provides an approach to quantify the covariation of joint motions and of muscle activations, i.e., elemental variables, during a task. To analyze goal-directed movements, factorization methods can be used to reduce the high dimensionality of these variables while accounting for much of the variance in large data sets. Three factorization methods considered in this paper are principal component analysis (PCA), nonnegative matrix factorization (NNMF), and independent component analysis (ICA). Bilateral human reaching data sets are used to compare the methods, and advantages of each are presented and discussed. PCA and NNMF had a comparable performance on both EMG and joint motion data and both outperformed ICA. However, NNMF's nonnegativity condition for activation of basis vectors is a useful attribute in identifying physiologically meaningful synergies, making it a more appealing method for future studies. A simulated data set is introduced to clarify the approaches and interpretation of the synergy structures returned by the three factorization methods.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY

Literature on comparing factorization methods in identifying motor synergies using numerically generated, simulation, and muscle activation data from animal studies already exists. We present an empirical evaluation of the performance of three of these methods on muscle activation and joint angles data from human reaching motion: principal component analysis, nonnegative matrix factorization, and independent component analysis. Using numerical simulation, we also studied the meaning and differences in the synergy structures returned by each method. The results can be used to unify approaches in identifying and interpreting motor synergies.

Vertical jump fatigue does not affect intersegmental coordination and segmental contribution

The aim of this study was to describe the intersegmental coordination and segmental contribution during intermittent vertical jumps performed until fatigue. Seven male visited the laboratory on two occasions: 1) the maximum vertical jump height was determined followed by vertical jumps habituation; 2) participants performed intermittent countermovement jumps until fatigue. Kinematic and kinetic variables were recorded. The overall reduction in vertical jump height was 5,5%, while the movement duration increased 10% during the test. The thigh segment angle at movement reversal significantly increased as the exercise progressed. Non-significant effect of fatigue on movement synergy was found for the intersegmental coordination pattern. More than 90% of the intersegmental coordination was explained by one coordination pattern. Thigh rotation contributed the most to the intersegmental coordination pattern, with the trunk second and the shank the least. Therefore, one intersegmental coordination pattern is followed throughout the vertical jumps until fatigue and thigh rotation contributes the most to jump height.

Stabilization of cat paw trajectory during locomotion

We investigated which of cat limb kinematic variables during swing of regular walking and accurate stepping along a horizontal ladder are stabilized by coordinated changes of limb segment angles. Three hypotheses were tested: 1) animals stabilize the entire swing trajectory of specific kinematic variables (performance variables); and 2) the level of trajectory stabilization is similar between regular and ladder walking and 3) is higher for forelimbs compared with hindlimbs. We used the framework of the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) hypothesis to quantify the structure of variance of limb kinematics in the limb segment orientation space across steps. Two components of variance were quantified for each potential performance variable, one of which affected it ("bad variance," variance orthogonal to the UCM, VORT) while the other one did not ("good variance," variance within the UCM, VUCM). The analysis of five candidate performance variables revealed that cats during both locomotor behaviors stabilize 1) paw vertical position during the entire swing (VUCM > VORT, except in mid-hindpaw swing of ladder walking) and 2) horizontal paw position in initial and terminal swing (except for the entire forepaw swing of regular walking). We also found that the limb length was typically stabilized in midswing, whereas limb orientation was not (VUCM ≤ VORT) for both limbs and behaviors during entire swing. We conclude that stabilization of paw position in early and terminal swing enables accurate and stable locomotion, while stabilization of vertical paw position in midswing helps paw clearance. This study is the first to demonstrate the applicability of the UCM-based analysis to nonhuman movement.

Bilateral synergies in foot force production tasks

We analysed the effects of task symmetry during bilateral accurate force production tasks performed by the two feet. In particular, we tested a hypothesis that bilateral deficit would lead to higher indices of synergies defined as co-varied adjustments in the two forces across trials that reduced total force variability. The subjects produced steady-state force followed by a quick force pulse into the target. The two feet could be acting both into plantar flexion and into dorsiflexion (symmetrical tasks), or in opposite directions (asymmetrical task). We used the framework of the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis to quantify two variance components, one of which did not change total force (V UCM), while the other did (V ORT). Synergy indices during the asymmetrical task were higher than in either symmetrical task. The difference was due to higher V UCM (compared to the symmetrical plantar flexion task) or lower V ORT (compared to the symmetrical dorsiflexion task). The synergy index showed a drop (anticipatory synergy adjustment, ASA) starting 100-150 ms prior to the force pulse initiation. The ASA tended to be shorter and of a smaller magnitude for the asymmetrical task. This is the first demonstration of bilateral synergies during accurate force production by the legs. We conclude that bilateral deficit has no or weak effects on two-leg synergies. The results fit the earlier introduced scheme with two groups of neural variables defining average performance of a redundant system and patterns of co-variation among its elemental variables, respectively.

Functional synergies underlying control of upright posture during changes in head orientation

Background

Studies of human upright posture typically have stressed the need to control ankle and hip joints to achieve postural stability. Recent studies, however, suggest that postural stability involves multi degree-of-freedom (DOF) coordination, especially when performing supra-postural tasks. This study investigated kinematic synergies related to control of the body’s position in space (two, four and six DOF models) and changes in the head’s orientation (six DOF model).

Methodology/Principal Findings

Subjects either tracked a vertically moving target with a head-mounted laser pointer or fixated a stationary point during 4-min trials. Uncontrolled manifold (UCM) analysis was performed across tracking cycles at each point in time to determine the structure of joint configuration variance related to postural stability or tracking consistency. The effect of simulated removal of covariance among joints on that structure was investigated to further determine the role of multijoint coordination. Results indicated that cervical joint motion was poorly coordinated with other joints to stabilize the position of the body center of mass (CM). However, cervical joints were coordinated in a flexible manner with more caudal joints to achieve consistent changes in head orientation.

Conclusions/Significance

An understanding of multijoint coordination requires reference to the stability/control of important performance variables. The nature of that coordination differs depending on the reference variable. Stability of upright posture primarily involved multijoint coordination of lower extremity and lower trunk joints. Consistent changes in the orientation of the head, however, required flexible coordination of those joints with motion of the cervical spine. A two-segment model of postural control was unable to account for the observed stability of the CM position during the tracking task, further supporting the need to consider multijoint coordination to understand postural stability.

PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS OF KINEMATIC PATTERNS VARIABILITY DURING SIT TO STAND IN PEOPLE WITH NON-SPECIFIC CHRONIC LOW BACK PAIN

Sit to stand (STS) task requires variability of all body segments to achieve the stability of the important control variables (i.e., center of mass (CM) and head positions). In this study, the possible differences in the variability patterns of various body segments were investigated between 11 chronic low back pain (LBP) and 12 control subjects during STS task through two types of variability analyses; first by calculating the variability of seven limb angles, CM and head positions across 15 trials and second by principal component analysis (PCA) of seven limb angles. Participants performed the task at 3 postural difficulty levels: rigid surface, open eyes (RO), rigid surface, close eyes (RC) and narrow surface, close eyes (NC). The results revealed that LBPs could stabilize the CM and head positions same as controls. Also there was more than 1 synergic combination of whole body segments in both LBP and healthy groups. But the number of PCs accounting for the major part of variance was reduced in the LBPs in the most unstable phase of movement (50%–80% trajectory) in the RO and RC conditions. This may indicate that LBPs have reduced flexibility in the most unstable phase of task.

Inter-joint synergies increase with motor task uncertainty in a whole-body pointing task

The study investigates the effect of task uncertainty on motor synergies and movement time for a whole-body pointing task employing a Fitts' like paradigm. Thirty-three healthy, young adults were asked to hold a 1.5-m long stick and point it as quickly and accurately as possible to the unmarked center of fixed targets on the ceiling at 150% of the subject's height from the ground. Each subject performed fifteen continuous repetitions for each target size (1cm, 2cm, 3cm, 5cm, 8cm, 13cm and 21cm diameters of circles). It was assumed that the task uncertainty increased as the target size increased. Motion capture was used to collect the data for joint angles in the sagittal plane and uncontrolled manifold (UCM) analysis was used in order to investigate synergistic actions of joints. Results from the study revealed that the movement time decreased as task uncertainty increased. The variability within the uncontrolled manifold (V(UCM)) systematically increased with task uncertainty, resulting in an increase in the index of inter-joint synergies (ΔV), although the pointing task errors (V(ORT)) were consistent across different target sizes. The results suggest that the central nervous system systematically modulates the inter-joint synergies with task uncertainty in the whole-body pointing task without affecting motor performance.

Joint coordination in young and older adults during quiet stance: effect of visual feedback of the center of pressure

How aging affects body sway and joint coordination during quiet standing was investigated under two visual feedback conditions provided on a monitor screen: fixed and moving cursor representing the center of pressure (COP) position measured by a platform. The across-time joint motion variance of ankle, knee, hip, mid-trunk, and cervical spine leading to COP displacement was analyzed using the uncontrolled manifold approach. The body sway was assessed by the COP displacement. Young and older adults showed greater ankle joint contribution to COP displacement than the other joints. However, older adults showed larger variability of knee and mid-trunk joint motions than young adults. During the moving condition, the ankle joint contribution decreased and hip joint contribution increased for both groups, but the COP displacement increased only for the older adults. We conclude that joint coordination and body sway during quiet standing can be modified by providing COP visual feedback and that joint coordination is affected by aging.

Reaching while standing in microgravity: a new postural solution to oversimplify movement control

Many studies showed that both arm movements and postural control are characterized by strong invariants. Besides, when a movement requires simultaneous control of the hand trajectory and balance maintenance, these two movement components are highly coordinated. It is well known that the focal and postural invariants are individually tightly linked to gravity, much less is known about the role of gravity in their coordination. It is not clear whether the effect of gravity on different movement components is such as to keep a strong movement-posture coordination even in different gravitational conditions or whether gravitational information is necessary for maintaining motor synergism. We thus set out to analyze the movements of eleven standing subjects reaching for a target in front of them beyond arm's length in normal conditions and in microgravity. The results showed that subjects quickly adapted to microgravity and were able to successfully accomplish the task. In contrast to the hand trajectory, the postural strategy was strongly affected by microgravity, so to become incompatible with normo-gravity balance constraints. The distinct effects of gravity on the focal and postural components determined a significant decrease in their reciprocal coordination. This finding suggests that movement-posture coupling is affected by gravity, and thus, it does not represent a unique hardwired and invariant mode of control. Additional kinematic and dynamic analyses suggest that the new motor strategy corresponds to a global oversimplification of movement control, fulfilling the mechanical and sensory constraints of the microgravity environment.

Motor abundance supports multitasking while standing

Many activities require simultaneous performance of multiple tasks. Motor redundancy may provide a key mechanism for multitasking, ensuring minimal inter-task interference. This study investigated the effect of performing two supra-postural tasks on postural stability. The component of joint configuration variance (JCV) reflecting flexible joint combinations (V(UCM)) that stabilize the center of mass (CoM) position and the component of JCV leading to variability (V(ORT)) of the CoM were determined using the Uncontrolled Manifold (UCM) approach. Subjects executed a targeting task alone or in combination with a ball-balancing task. UCM analysis revealed that the joints were coordinated such that their combined variance reflected primarily V(UCM), without a substantial effect on CoM position stability. Evidence for this flexible control strategy increased when the ball-balancing task was added to targeting, or when the index of difficulty of targeting increased, both without leading to substantial increases in V(ORT) or CoM position variance. The increase in joint variance when performing additional tasks without affecting adversely CoM position stability supports the hypothesis that the nervous system takes advantage of available motor redundancy for the successful performance of multiple tasks concurrently. Future work is needed to investigate the limits of this control scheme.

Biologically inspired kinematic synergies enable linear balance control of a humanoid robot

Despite many efforts, balance control of humanoid robots in the presence of unforeseen external or internal forces has remained an unsolved problem. The difficulty of this problem is a consequence of the high dimensionality of the action space of a humanoid robot, due to its large number of degrees of freedom (joints), and of non-linearities in its kinematic chains. Biped biological organisms face similar difficulties, but have nevertheless solved this problem. Experimental data reveal that many biological organisms reduce the high dimensionality of their action space by generating movements through linear superposition of a rather small number of stereotypical combinations of simultaneous movements of many joints, to which we refer as kinematic synergies in this paper. We show that by constructing two suitable non-linear kinematic synergies for the lower part of the body of a humanoid robot, balance control can in fact be reduced to a linear control problem, at least in the case of relatively slow movements. We demonstrate for a variety of tasks that the humanoid robot HOAP-2 acquires through this approach the capability to balance dynamically against unforeseen disturbances that may arise from external forces or from manipulating unknown loads.

Does movement planning follow Fitts' law? Scaling anticipatory postural adjustments with movement speed and accuracy

We wanted to determine whether movement planning followed Fitts' law by investigating the relationship between movement planning and movement performance in experienced dancers executing a typical classical ballet step in which the big toe was pointed to targets at different distances and of different widths so as to obtain several indices of difficulty (ID). Movement time, velocity and variability at the target were the variables of movement performance kinematics; movement planning was evaluated by analysis of anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) to assess their modulation at different IDs. Movement time and peak of velocity were found to scale with the ID only when individual movement distance across target widths was entered into the analysis. APA magnitude and duration both scaled according to movement parameters but not in the same way. APA magnitude scaled with movement velocity, while APA duration was sensitive to the amplitude-to-accuracy ratio following the ID for movements performed in the shortest time interval when on-line feedback control is probably not available. Here we show that timing of muscle activation acts as an independent central command that triggers fine-tuning for speed-accuracy trade-off.

Kinematic synergies during saccades involving whole-body rotation: a study based on the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis

We used the framework of the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis to study the coordination of body segments and eye movements in standing persons during the task of shifting the gaze to a target positioned behind the body. The task was performed at a comfortable speed and fast. Multi-segment and head-eye synergies were quantified as co-varied changes in elemental variables (body segment rotations and eye rotation) that stabilized (reduced the across trials variability) of head rotation in space and gaze trajectory. Head position in space was stabilized by co-varied rotations of body segments prior to the action, during its later stages, and after its completion. The synergy index showed a drop that started prior to the action initiation (anticipatory synergy adjustment) and continued during the phase of quick head rotation. Gaze direction was stabilized only at movement completion and immediately after the saccade at movement initiation under the "fast" instruction. The study documents for the first time anticipatory synergy adjustments during whole-body actions. It shows multi-joint synergies stabilizing head trajectory in space. In contrast, there was no synergy between head and eye rotations during saccades that would achieve a relatively invariant gaze trajectory.

Violations of Fitts' law in a ballistic task

The authors explored changes in the postural preparation and movement times during jumps into targets of different sizes placed at different distances from the participant. Both movement and preparation times scaled with movement distance. Neither movement nor preparation time showed an effect of target size, although preparation time showed a tendency to increase for smaller targets. These observations show that the classical Fitts' law can be violated in tasks that involve a ballistic component. The data corroborate a hypothesis that Fitts' law originates at the level of movement planning.

Analyses of joint variance related to voluntary whole-body movements performed in standing

This article investigates two methodological issues resulting from a recent study of center of mass positional stability during performance of whole-body targeting tasks (Freitas et al., 2006): (1) Can identical results be obtained with uncontrolled manifold (UCM) variance analysis when it is based on estimating the Jacobian using multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis compared to that using typical analytic formal geometric model? (2) Are kinematic synergies more related to stabilization of the instantaneous anterior-posterior position of the center of mass (COM(AP)) or the center of pressure (COP(AP))? UCM analysis was used to partition the variance of the joint configuration into 'bad' variance, leading to COM(AP) or COP(AP) variability, and 'good' variance, reflecting the use of motor abundance. Findings indicated (1) nearly identical UCM results for both methods of Jacobian estimation; and (2) more 'good' and less 'bad' joint variance related to stability of COP(AP) than to COM(AP) position. The first result requires further investigation with more degrees of freedom, but suggests that when a formal geometric model is unavailable or overly complex, UCM analysis may be possible by estimating the Jacobian using MLR. Correct interpretation of the second result requires analysis of the singular values of the Jacobian for different performance variables, which indicates how certain amount of joint variance affects each performance variable. Thus, caution is required when interpreting differences in joint variance structure among various performance variables obtained by UCM analysis without first investigating how the different relationships captured by the Jacobian translate those variances into performance-level variance.

A comparison of methods for identifying the Jacobian for uncontrolled manifold variance analysis

Uncontrolled Manifold (UCM) analysis has been used to identify a component of joint variance leading to pointer-tip position variability and a component representing motor abundant joint combinations corresponding to an equivalent pointer-tip position. A Jacobian is required for UCM analysis, typically derived from an analytic model relating joint postures to pointer-tip position. Derivation of the Jacobian is often non-trivial, however, because of the complexity of the system being studied. In this article, we compared the effect of different methods of deriving the Jacobian on results of UCM analyses during reaching. Jacobian matrices were determined at each percentage of the reach across trials using one of three methods: (M1) partial derivatives of the geometric model relating ten joint postures, segment lengths and pointer length to the position of a hand-mounted pointer tip; or (M2-M3) as the coefficients of linear regression between the ten joint postures and either (M2) the pointer tip position measured directly from motion capture or (M3) the pointer-tip position estimated from the geometric model. For all methods, motor abundant joint variance (V(UCM)) was larger than joint variance leading to a variable pointer-tip position (V(ORT)). Results did not differ among methods prior to the time of peak velocity. Thereafter, M2 yielded lower V(ORT) and slightly higher V(UCM) compared to M1. Method M3 was used to disambiguate the possible effect of estimating model parameters for the geometric model on the M1-M2 comparison. The advantages of the use of linear regression method in the UCM approach are discussed.

Effects of joint immobilization on standing balance

We investigated the effect of joint immobilization on the postural sway during quiet standing. We hypothesized that the center of pressure (COP), rambling, and trembling trajectories would be affected by joint immobilization. Ten young adults stood on a force plate during 60 s without and with immobilized joints (only knees constrained, CK; knees and hips, CH; and knees, hips, and trunk, CT), with their eyes open (OE) or closed (CE). The root mean square deviation (RMS, the standard deviation from the mean) and mean speed of COP, rambling, and trembling trajectories in the anterior-posterior and medial-lateral directions were analyzed. Similar effects of vision were observed for both directions: larger amplitudes for all variables were observed in the CE condition. In the anterior-posterior direction, postural sway increased only when the knees, hips, and trunk were immobilized. For the medial-lateral direction, the RMS and the mean speed of the COP, rambling, and trembling displacements decreased after immobilization of knees and hips and knees, hips, and trunk. These findings indicate that the single inverted pendulum model is unable to completely explain the processes involved in the control of the quiet upright stance in the anterior-posterior and medial-lateral directions.

What do synergies do? Effects of secondary constraints on multidigit synergies in accurate force-production tasks

We used the framework of the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) hypothesis to explore changes in the structure of variability in multifinger force-production tasks when a secondary task was introduced. Healthy young subjects produced several levels of the total force by pressing with the four fingers of the hand on force sensors. The frame with the sensors rested on the table (Stable condition) or on a narrow supporting beam (Unstable conditions) that could be placed between different finger pairs. Most variance in the finger mode space was compatible with a fixed value of the total force across all conditions, whereas the patterns of sharing of the total force among the fingers were condition dependent. Moment of force was stabilized only in the Unstable conditions. The finger mode data were projected onto the UCM computed for the total force and subjected to principal component (PC) analysis. Two PCs accounted for >90% of the variance. The directions of the PC vectors varied across subjects in the Stable condition, whereas two "default" PCs were observed under the Unstable conditions. These observations show that different persons coordinate their fingers differently in force-production tasks. They converge on similar solutions when an additional constraint is introduced. The use of variable solutions allows avoiding a loss in accuracy of performance when the same elements get involved in another task. Our results suggest a mechanism underlying the principle of superposition suggested in a variety of human and robotic studies.

Anticipatory control of head posture

OBJECTIVE

We tested a hypothesis on two patterns of anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) in neck muscles, reciprocal and co-activation, that may be used in a task-specific way. We also explored possible relation of APAs in leg and trunk muscles to head stabilization.

METHODS

Load perturbations (loading and unloading) were applied to the head, trunk, and head and trunk simultaneously using similar hand actions by standing persons. Electromyographic signals (EMGs) from 10 muscles were recorded. Shifts of the center of pressure and EMG indices were computed over typical time intervals for APA.

RESULTS

Time-shifted (reciprocal) activation of neck flexor and extensor muscles during APAs was seen when perturbations were applied directly to the head. Simultaneous activation dominated when the perturbations were applied to the trunk. Minimal APAs were seen in the leg/trunk muscles during head perturbation tests. APAs during trunk perturbation were not different from those during trunk and head perturbation.

CONCLUSIONS

The results confirm the existence of two different patterns of APAs in neck muscles. A time-shifted (reciprocal) pattern is more likely to be used in anticipation of a perturbation acting directly on the head. A simultaneous activation (co-activation) pattern is used when direction of head perturbation cannot be predicted with certainty. Leg/trunk APAs are unlikely to help stabilize head posture.

SIGNIFICANCE

These results are important for better understanding of feed-forward mechanisms of the control of head posture with possible implications for neurological patients who suffer from impaired feed-forward postural control.

A model of cerebrocerebello-spinomuscular interaction in the sagittal control of human walking

A computationally developed model of human upright balance control (Jo and Massaquoi on Biol cybern 91:188-202, 2004) has been enhanced to describe biped walking in the sagittal plane. The model incorporates (a) non-linear muscle mechanics having activation level -dependent impedance, (b) scheduled cerebrocerebellar interaction for control of center of mass position and trunk pitch angle, (c) rectangular pulse-like feedforward commands from a brainstem/ spinal pattern generator, and (d) segmental reflex modulation of muscular synergies to refine inter-joint coordination. The model can stand when muscles around the ankle are coactivated. When trigger signals activate, the model transitions from standing still to walking at 1.5 m/s. Simulated natural walking displays none of seven pathological gait features. The model can simulate different walking speeds by tuning the amplitude and frequency in spinal pattern generator. The walking is stable against forward and backward pushes of up to 70 and 75 N, respectively, and with sudden changes in trunk mass of up to 18%. The sensitivity of the model to changes in neural parameters and the predicted behavioral results of simulated neural system lesions are examined. The deficit gait simulations may be useful to support the functional and anatomical correspondences of the model. The model demonstrates that basic human-like walking can be achieved by a hierarchical structure of stabilized-long loop feedback and synergy-mediated feedforward controls. In particular, internal models of body dynamics are not required.

Control and estimation of posture during quiet stance depends on multijoint coordination

This study tested the hypotheses that all major joints along the longitudinal axis of the body are equally active during quiet standing and that their motions are coordinated to stabilize the spatial positions of the center of mass (CM) and head. Analyses of the effect of joint configuration variance on the stability of the CM and head positions were performed using the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) approach. Subjects stood quietly with arms folded across their chests for three 5-min trials each with and without vision. The UCM analysis revealed that the six joints examined were coordinated such that their combined variance had minimal effect on the CM and head positions. Removing vision led to a structuring of the resulting increased joint variance such that little of the increase affected stability of the CM and head positions. The results reveal a control strategy involving coordinated variations of most major joints to stabilize variables important to postural control during quiet stance.

Effects of postural task requirements on the speed–accuracy trade-off

We investigated the speed-accuracy trade-off in a task of pointing with the big toe of the right foot by a standing person that was designed to accentuate the importance of postural adjustments. This was done to test two hypotheses: (1) movement time during foot pointing will scale linearly with ID during target width changes, but the scaling will differ across movement distances; and (2) variations in movement time will be reflected in postural preparations to foot motion. Ten healthy adults stood on the force plate and were instructed to point with the big toe of the right foot at a target (with widths varying from 2 to 10 cm) placed on the floor in front of the subject at a distance varying from 10 to 100 cm. The instruction given to the subjects was typical for Fitts' paradigm: "be as fast and as accurate as possible in your pointing movement". The results have shown that movement time during foot pointing movements scaled with both target distance (D) and target width (W), but the two dependences could not be reduced to a single function of W/D, confirming the first hypothesis. With respect to the second hypothesis, we found that changes in task parameters led to proportional variations in movement speed and indices of variability of the postural adjustments prior to leg movement initiation, confirming the second hypothesis. Both groups of observations were valid over the whole range of distances despite the switch of the movement strategy in the middle of this range. We conclude that the speed-accuracy trade-off in a task with postural adjustments originates at the level of movement planning. The different dependences of movement time on D and W may be related to spontaneous postural sway (migration of the point of application of the resultant force acting on the body of the standing person). The results may have practical implications for posture and gait rehabilitation techniques that use modifications of stepping accuracy.

Effects of linear versus sigmoid coding of visual or audio biofeedback for the control of upright stance

Although both visual and audio biofeedback (BF) systems for postural control can reduce sway during stance, a direct comparison between the two systems has never been done. Further, comparing different coding designs of audio and visual BF may help in elucidating how BF information is integrated in the control of posture, and may improve knowledge for the design of innovative BF systems for postural control. The purpose of this paper is to compare the effects of linear versus sigmoid coding of trunk acceleration for audio and visual BF on postural sway in a group of eight, healthy subjects while standing on a foam surface. Results showed that sigmoid-coded audio BF reduced sway acceleration more than did a linear-coded audio BF, whereas a linear-coded visual BF reduced sway acceleration more than a sigmoid-coded visual BF. In addition, audio BF had larger effects on reducing center of pressure (COP) displacement whereas visual BF had larger effects on reducing trunk sway. These results suggest that audio and visual BF for postural control benefit from different types of sensory coding and each type of BF may encourage a different type of postural sway strategy.

Motor equivalent control of the center of mass in response to support surface perturbations

To claim that the center of mass (CM) of the body is a controlled variable of the postural system is difficult to verify experimentally. In this report, a new variant of the method of the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) hypothesis was used to evaluate CM control in response to an abrupt surface perturbation during stance. Subjects stood upright on a support surface that was displaced in the posterior direction. Support surface translations between 0.03 and 0.12 m, each lasting for 275 ms, were presented randomly. The UCM corresponding to all possible combinations of joints that are equivalent with respect to producing the average pre-perturbation anterior-posterior position of the center of mass (CM(AP)) were linearly estimated for each trial. At each point in time thereafter, the difference between the current joint configuration and the average pre-perturbation joint configuration was computed. This joint difference vector was then projected onto the pre-perturbation UCM as a measure of motor equivalence, and onto its complementary subspace, which represents joint combinations that lead to a different CM(AP) position. A similar analysis was performed related to control of the trunk's spatial orientation. The extent to which the joint velocity vector acted to stabilize the CM(AP) position was also examined. Excursions of the hip and ankle joints both increased linearly with perturbation magnitude. The configuration of joints at each instance during the perturbation differed from the mean configuration prior to the perturbation, as evidenced by the joint difference vector. Most of this joint difference vector was consistent, however, with the average pre-perturbation CM(AP) position rather than leading to a different CM(AP )position. This was not the case, however, when performing this analysis with respect to the UCM corresponding to the control of the pre-perturbation trunk orientation. The projection of the instantaneous joint velocity vector also was found to lie primarily in the UCM corresponding to the pre-perturbation CM(AP) position, indicating that joint motion was damped in directions leading to a change away from the pre-perturbation CM(AP) position. These results provide quantitative support for the argument that the CM position is a planned variable of the postural system and that its control is achieved through selective, motor equivalent changes in the joint configuration in response to support surface perturbations. The results suggest that the nervous system accomplishes postural control by a control strategy that considers all DOFs. This strategy presumably resists combinations of DOFs that affect the stability of important task-relevant variables (CM(AP) position) while, to a large extent, freeing from control combinations of those DOFs that have no effect on the task-relevant variables (Schöner in Ecol Psychol 8:291-314, 1995).

Muscle modes and synergies during voluntary body sway

We studied the coordination of muscle activity during voluntary body sway performed by human subjects at different frequencies. Subjects stood on the force platform and performed cyclic shifts of the center of pressure (COP) while being paced by the metronome. A major question was: does the makeup of muscle synergies and their ability to assure reproducible sway trajectory vary with the speed of the sway? Principal component analysis was used to identify three muscle groups (M-modes) within the space of integrated indices of muscle activity. M-mode vectors were similar across both subjects and sway frequencies. There were also similar relations between changes in the magnitudes of all three M-modes and COP shifts (the Jacobians) across the sway frequencies. Variance in the M-mode space across sway cycles was partitioned into two components, one that did not affect the average value of COP shift ("good variance") and the other that did. An index (DeltaV) was computed reflecting the relative amount of the "good variance"; this index has been interpreted as reflecting a multi-M-mode synergy stabilizing the COP trajectory. The average value of DeltaV was similar across all sway frequencies; DeltaV showed a within-a-cycle modulation at low but not at high sway frequencies. The modulation was mostly due to variations in the "good variance". We conclude that muscle modes and their mapping on COP shifts are robust across a wide range of rates of COP shifts. Multi-M-mode synergies stabilize COP shifts (assure its reproducibility) within a wide range of its speeds, but only during cyclic COP changes. Taken together with earlier studies that showed weak or absent multi-M-mode synergies during fast discrete COP shifts, the results suggest a basic difference between the neural control assuring stability of steady-state processes (postural or oscillatory) and transient processes (such as discrete actions). Current results provide the most comprehensive support for the notion of multi-M-mode synergies stabilizing time profiles of important performance variables in motor tasks involving large muscle groups.

Hierarchies of synergies: an example of two-hand, multi-finger tasks

We explored the ability of the central nervous system (CNS) to assemble synergies stabilizing the output of sets of effectors at two levels of a control hierarchy. Specifically, we asked a question: can the CNS organize both two-hand and within-a-hand force stabilizing synergies in a simple two-hand force production task that involves two fingers per hand? Intuitively, one could expect a positive answer; that is, forces produced by each hand are expected to co-vary negatively across trials to bring down the total force variability, while forces produced by each finger within-a-hand are expected to co-vary negatively to reduce the variability of that hand's contribution to the total force. The subjects were instructed to follow a trapezoidal time profile with the signal corresponding to the force produced by a set of instructed fingers in one-hand tasks with two-finger force production and in two-hand tasks with involvement of both symmetrical and asymmetrical finger pairs in the two hands. Finger force co-variation across trials was quantified and used as an index of stabilization of the force produced by all the instructed fingers, and of the force produced by finger pairs within-a-hand. No major differences were seen between the dominant and the non-dominant hand and between the two-hand tasks with symmetrical and asymmetrical finger involvement. Stronger synergies were seen in the index-middle finger pair as compared to the ring-little finger pair. The main result of the study is the significantly weaker or even lacking two-finger force stabilizing synergies within-a-hand during two-hand tasks while such synergies were present in one-hand tasks. This observation points at a potential limitation in the ability of the CNS to organize synergies at two levels of a control hierarchy simultaneously. It also allows suggesting a hypothesis on two types of synergies in the human motor repertoire, well-practiced synergies that form a library serving as the foundation for all novel actions, and freshly assembled synergies.

Anticipatory adjustments of multi-finger synergies in preparation for self-triggered perturbations

We studied changes in multi-finger synergies associated with predictable and unpredictable force perturbations applied to a finger during a multi-finger constant total force production task. The main hypothesis was that indices of multi-finger synergies can show anticipatory changes in preparation for a predictable perturbation. Subjects sat in a chair and pressed on force sensors with the four fingers of the right hand. The task was to produce a constant level of total force. The fingers acted against loads that produced upward directed forces. The loads (applied either to the index or to the ring finger) could be disengaged either by the subject or by the experimenter. An index of finger co-variation, DeltaV was computed across sets of 12 trials at each time sample and for all tasks separately. During steady-state force production, all subjects showed positive DeltaV values corresponding to strong negative covariation among finger forces interpreted as a force-stabilizing synergy. Prior to self-triggered unloading, subjects showed an anticipatory drop in DeltaV that started 100-125 ms prior to the unloading time. Such early changes were absent in trials with experimenter-triggered unloading. After an unloading, subjects changed forces of both perturbed and unperturbed fingers and reached a new sharing pattern of the total force. In experimenter-triggered conditions, changes in the forces of unperturbed fingers could be seen as early as 120 ms following an unloading. The index DeltaV dropped following a perturbation and then recovered; the recovery occurred faster in self-triggered conditions. We conclude that humans can use feed-forward changes in multi-finger synergies (anticipatory synergy adjustments) in anticipation of a predictable perturbation. These changes may help avoid prolonged weakening of a multi-digit force-stabilizing synergy. We discuss a possibility that anticipatory postural adjustments may represent a particular case of the phenomenon of anticipatory synergy adjustments and suggest a hierarchical control scheme that incorporates a possibility of independent control over the output of a multi-element system and covariation patterns among outputs of its elements.