Deciphering the functional role of spatial and temporal muscle synergies in whole-body movements

TY - JOUR

T1 - Deciphering the functional role of spatial and temporal muscle synergies in whole-body movements

AU - Delis, Ioannis

AU - Hilt, Pauline M

AU - Pozzo, Thierry

AU - Panzeri, Stefano

AU - Berret, Bastien

PY - 2018/5/30

Y1 - 2018/5/30

N2 - Voluntary movement is hypothesized to rely on a limited number of muscle synergies, the recruitment of which translates task goals into effective muscle activity. In this study, we investigated how to analytically characterize the functional role of different types of muscle synergies in task performance. To this end, we recorded a comprehensive dataset of muscle activity during a variety of whole-body pointing movements. We decomposed the electromyographic (EMG) signals using a space-by-time modularity model which encompasses the main types of synergies. We then used a task decoding and information theoretic analysis to probe the role of each synergy by mapping it to specific task features. We found that the temporal and spatial aspects of the movements were encoded by different temporal and spatial muscle synergies, respectively, consistent with the intuition that there should a correspondence between major attributes of movement and major features of synergies. This approach led to the development of a novel computational method for comparing muscle synergies from different participants according to their functional role. This functional similarity analysis yielded a small set of temporal and spatial synergies that describes the main features of whole-body reaching movements.

AB - Voluntary movement is hypothesized to rely on a limited number of muscle synergies, the recruitment of which translates task goals into effective muscle activity. In this study, we investigated how to analytically characterize the functional role of different types of muscle synergies in task performance. To this end, we recorded a comprehensive dataset of muscle activity during a variety of whole-body pointing movements. We decomposed the electromyographic (EMG) signals using a space-by-time modularity model which encompasses the main types of synergies. We then used a task decoding and information theoretic analysis to probe the role of each synergy by mapping it to specific task features. We found that the temporal and spatial aspects of the movements were encoded by different temporal and spatial muscle synergies, respectively, consistent with the intuition that there should a correspondence between major attributes of movement and major features of synergies. This approach led to the development of a novel computational method for comparing muscle synergies from different participants according to their functional role. This functional similarity analysis yielded a small set of temporal and spatial synergies that describes the main features of whole-body reaching movements.

KW - Adult

KW - Electromyography

KW - Female

KW - Humans

KW - Male

KW - Movement

KW - Muscle, Skeletal/physiology

KW - Spatio-Temporal Analysis

U2 - 10.1038/s41598-018-26780-z

DO - 10.1038/s41598-018-26780-z

M3 - SCORING: Journal article

C2 - 29849101

VL - 8

SP - 8391

JO - SCI REP-UK

JF - SCI REP-UK

SN - 2045-2322

IS - 1

ER -