Predictive Modulation of Muscle Coordination Pattern Magnitude Scales Fingertip Force Magnitude Over the Voluntary Range

Abstract

Human fingers have sufficiently more muscles than joints such that every fingertip force of submaximal magnitude can be produced by an infinite number of muscle coordination patterns. Nevertheless, the nervous system seems to effortlessly select muscle coordination patterns when sequentially producing fingertip forces of low, moderate, and maximal magnitude. The hypothesis of this study is that the selection of coordination patterns to produce submaximal forces is simplified by the appropriate modulation of the magnitude of a muscle coordination pattern capable of producing the largest expected fingertip force. In each of three directions, eight subjects were asked to sequentially produce fingertip forces of low, moderate, and maximal magnitude with their dominant forefinger. Muscle activity was described by fine-wire electromyograms (EMGs) simultaneously collected from all muscles of the forefinger. A muscle coordination pattern was defined as the vector list of the EMG activity of each muscle. For all force directions, statistically significant muscle coordination patterns similar to those previously reported for 100% of maximal fingertip forces were found for 50% of maximal voluntary force. Furthermore the coordination pattern and fingertip force vector magnitudes were highly correlated (r > 0.88). Average coordination pattern vectors at 50 and 100% of maximal force were highly correlated with each other, as well as with individual coordination pattern vectors in the ramp transitions preceding them. In contrast to this consistency of EMG coordination patterns, predictions using a musculoskeletal computer model of the forefinger show that force magnitudes </=50% of maximal fingertip force can be produced by coordination patterns drastically different from those needed for maximal force. Thus when modulating fingertip force magnitude across the voluntary range, the number of contributing muscles and the relative activity among them was not changed. Rather, the production of low and moderate forces seems to be simplified by appropriately scaling the magnitude of a coordination pattern capable of producing the highest force expected.

Functional muscle synergies constrain force production during postural tasks

“…While both optimization criteria used here predict behavior in some circumstances (Crowninshield and Brand 1981;Kurtzer et al 2006;Valero-Cuevas 2000), the primary reason for selecting these particular criteria from the many models of their type that have been proposed (Crowninshield and Brand 1981) was the drastically different solutions they produce (Fig. 2).…”

Neuromechanics of muscle synergies for posture and movement

“…This rotation is not imposed by biomechanical limitations, but appears to be a consequence of using identical muscle synergies in disparate postural configurations. Similarly, neuromechanical models of both finger force generation and pedaling in humans demonstrate that muscle activation patterns corresponding to maximal task performance appear to be retained at sub-maximal levels [46,82], possibly in order to achieve a range of related behaviors using the smallest number of muscle synergies. These studies suggest that from the perspective of the nervous system, there may be some "cost" associated with increasing the number of muscle synergies; however, this has yet to be explicitly compared to that of the sub-optimal performance that may arise as a consequence of using fewer muscle synergies.…”

The use of flexible arm muscle synergies to perform an isometric stabilization task

“…Ting and Macpherson, 2005;Valero-Cuevas, 2000). It has been suggested that new behaviors are built by recombining already existing neuromuscular primitives (Kargo and Giszter, 2000;Kargo and Nitz, 2003;Ivanenko et al, 2005).…”