Neuromuscular adaptations after osseointegration of a bone-anchored prosthesis in a unilateral transfemoral amputee - a case study.

Purpose: Many individuals with a lower limb amputation experience problems with the fitting of the socket of their prosthesis, leading to dissatisfaction or device rejection. Osseointegration (OI)- the implantation of a shaft directly interfacing with the remaining bone- is an alternative for these patients. In this observational study, we investigated how bone anchoring influences neuromuscular parameters during balance control in a patient with a unilateral transfemoral amputation.

Isolating the Unique and Generic Movement Characteristics of Highly Trained Runners.

Human movement patterns were shown to be as unique to individuals as their fingerprints. However, some movement characteristics are more important than other characteristics for machine learning algorithms to distinguish between individuals. Here, we explored the idea that movement patterns contain unique characteristics that differentiate between individuals and generic characteristics that do not differentiate between individuals.

Influence of Augmented Visual Feedback on Balance Control in Unilateral Transfemoral Amputees.

Patients with a lower limb amputation rely more on visual feedback to maintain balance than able-bodied individuals. Altering this sensory modality in amputees thus results in a disrupted postural control. However, little is known about how lower limb amputees cope with augmented visual information during balance tasks.

Soft-tissue vibration and damping response to footwear changes across a wide range of anthropometrics in running.

Different factors were shown to alter the vibration characteristics of soft-tissue compartments during running. Changing pre-heel strike muscle activation or changing footwear conditions represents two possibilities to influence the vibration response via frequency shift or altered damping. Associated with the study of muscle pre-tuning is the difficulty in quantifying clean experimental data for the acceleration of soft-tissue compartments and muscle activities in heterogeneous populations.

Heart rate variability predicts decline in sensorimotor rhythm control.

Voluntary control of sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs, 8-12 Hz) can be used for brain-computer interface (BCI)-based operation of an assistive hand exoskeleton, e.g. in finger paralysis after stroke.

Changes in ankle work, foot work, and tibialis anterior activation throughout a long run.

Background: The ankle and foot together contribute to over half of the positive and negative work performed by the lower limbs during running. Yet, little is known about how foot kinetics change throughout a run. The amount of negative foot work may decrease as tibialis anterior (TA) electromyography (EMG) changes throughout longer-duration runs.

Systematic reduction of leg muscle activity throughout a standard assessment of running footwear.

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate whether there is a systematic change of leg muscle activity, as quantified by surface electromyography (EMG), throughout a standard running footwear assessment protocol at a predetermined running speed.

Methods: Thirty-one physically active adults (15 females and 16 males) completed 5 testing rounds consisting of overground running trials at a speed of 3.5 m/s.

Targeted Walking in Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury: Role of Corticospinal Control.

Locomotor recovery after incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI) is influenced by spinal and supraspinal networks. Conventional clinical gait analysis fails to differentiate between these components. There is evidence that corticospinal control is enhanced during targeted walking, where each foot must be continuously placed on visual targets in randomized order.

Pronation or foot movement - What is important.

Objectives: Despite difficulties to quantify foot pronation non-invasively and during dynamic tasks, pronation was frequently discussed with respect to injury risk and footwear development. Typically, surrogate measures were used to approximate the movement of pronation showing inconsistent results due to the high variability in the methodology and protocols. This study determines the relationships between all identified pronation variables and aims to reduce the data set to its dominant factors.

Neuromuscular adaptations and sensorimotor integration following a unilateral transfemoral amputation.

Background: Following an amputation, the human postural control system develops neuromuscular adaptations to regain an effective postural control. We investigated the compensatory mechanisms behind these adaptations and how sensorimotor integration is affected after a lower-limb transfemoral amputation.

Methods: Center of pressure (CoP) data of 12 unilateral transfemoral amputees and 12 age-matched able-bodied subjects were recorded during quiet standing with eyes open (EO) and closed (EC).

Classification of gait muscle activation patterns according to knee injury history using a support vector machine approach.

Abnormal muscle activation patterns during gait following knee injury that persist past the acute injury and rehabilitation phase (>three years) are not well characterized but may be related to post-traumatic knee osteoarthritis. The aim was to characterize the abnormal muscle activity from electromyograms of five leg muscles that were recorded during treadmill walking for young adults with and without a previous knee injury 3-12 years prior. The wavelet transformed and amplitude normalized electromyograms yielded intensity patterns that reflect the muscle activity of these muscles resolved in time and frequency.

Quadriceps-hamstrings intermuscular coherence during single-leg squatting 3-12 years following a youth sport-related knee injury.

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of co-contraction as per electromyographic gamma-band intermuscular coherence of the quadricep (Q) and hamstring (H) muscles during single-leg squatting (SLS), and to assess the influence of sex and self-reported knee complaints on the association between knee injury history and medial and lateral Q-H intermuscular coherence. Participants included 34 individuals who suffered a youth sport-related intra-articular knee injury 3-12 years previously, and 37 individuals with no knee injury history. Surface electromyographic signals were recorded from medial and lateral thigh muscles bilaterally to determine the gamma-band (30-60 Hz) intermuscular coherence between medial and lateral Q-H muscle pairs during SLS.

Probing Corticospinal Control During Different Locomotor Tasks Using Detailed Time-Frequency Analysis of Electromyograms.

Locomotion relies on the fine-tuned coordination of different muscles which are controlled by particular neural circuits. Depending on the attendant conditions, walking patterns must be modified to optimally meet the demands of the task. Assessing neuromuscular control during dynamic conditions is methodologically highly challenging and prone to artifacts.

Altered multi-muscle coordination patterns in habitual forefoot runners during a prolonged, exhaustive run.

In response to fatigue during an exhaustive treadmill run, forefoot runner's muscles must adapt to maintain their pace. From a neuromuscular control perspective, certain muscles may not be able to sustain the force to meet the run's demands; thus, there may be alternative muscle coordination in the lower extremity that allows for continued running for an extended period of time. The aim of this study was to quantify the change in muscle coordination during a prolonged run in forefoot runners.

Soft tissue vibration dynamics after an unexpected impact.

It has been proposed that during walking and running the body has strategies to minimize the soft tissue vibrations. The concept of muscle tuning suggests that muscle activity changes in response to the input signal to modify the frequency and damping of such vibrations. Although it has been demonstrated for continuous vibrations and single impacts, the adaptations dynamics are still unclear.

Development of a multichannel current-EMG system for coherence modulation with visual biofeedback.

By means of biofeedback, neuromotor control can be modified. Recent biofeedback experiments have used the power of the electromyogram of one muscle in different frequency bands to control a two-dimensional cursor. However, the human body usually requires coherent activation of multiple muscles to achieve daily life tasks.

Beta, gamma band, and high-frequency coherence of EMGs of vasti muscles caused by clustering of motor units.

The vasti muscles stabilize the knee joint during the running movement. This requires some motor units to synchronize. Test the hypothesis that EMGs from the vasti muscles (VM and VL) are coherent in four frequency bands, one below 30 Hz, the 40 Hz (30-45 Hz), the middle band up to 120 Hz, and the high-frequency band (135-280 Hz).

Intermuscular Coherence Between Surface EMG Signals Is Higher for Monopolar Compared to Bipolar Electrode Configurations.

The vasti muscles have to work in concert to control knee joint motion during movements like walking, running, or squatting. Coherence analysis between surface electromyography (EMG) signals is a common technique to study muscle synchronization during such movements and gain insight into strategies of the central nervous system to optimize neuromuscular performance. However, different assessment methods related to EMG data acquisition, e.

Motor Unit Action Potential Clustering-Theoretical Consideration for Muscle Activation during a Motor Task.

During dynamic or sustained isometric contractions, bursts of muscle activity appear in the electromyography (EMG) signal. Theoretically, these bursts of activity likely occur because motor units are constrained to fire temporally close to one another and thus the impulses are "clustered" with short delays to elicit bursts of muscle activity. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a sequence comprised of "clustered" motor unit action potentials (MUAP) can explain spectral and amplitude changes of the EMG during a simulated motor task.

Acute Neuromuscular Adaptations in the Postural Control of Patients with Parkinson's Disease after Perturbed Walking.

Patients suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD) present motor impairments reflected in the dynamics of the center of pressure (CoP) adjustments during quiet standing. One method to study the dynamics of CoP adjustments is the entropic half-life (EnHL), which measures the short-term correlations of a time series at different time scales. Changes in the EnHL of CoP time series suggest neuromuscular adaptations in the control of posture.

Task-Dependent Intermuscular Motor Unit Synchronization between Medial and Lateral Vastii Muscles during Dynamic and Isometric Squats.

Purpose: Motor unit activity is coordinated between many synergistic muscle pairs but the functional role of this coordination for the motor output is unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the short-term modality of coordinated motor unit activity-the synchronized discharge of individual motor units across muscles within time intervals of 5ms-for the Vastus Medialis (VM) and Lateralis (VL). Furthermore, we studied the task-dependency of intermuscular motor unit synchronization between VM and VL during static and dynamic squatting tasks to provide insight into its functional role.

A Novel Approach to Determine Strides, Ice Contact, and Swing Phases During Ice Hockey Skating Using a Single Accelerometer.

This study presents a new approach for automated identification of ice hockey skating strides and a method to detect ice contact and swing phases of individual strides by quantifying vibrations in 3D acceleration data during the blade-ice interaction. The strides of a 30-m forward sprinting task, performed by 6 ice hockey players, were evaluated using a 3D accelerometer fixed to a hockey skate. Synchronized plantar pressure data were recorded as reference data.

Time scale dependence of the center of pressure entropy: What characteristics of the neuromuscular postural control system influence stabilographic entropic half-life?

The center of pressure (COP) movement in studies of postural control reveals a highly regular structure (low entropy) over short time periods and a highly irregular structure over large time scales (high entropy). Entropic half-life (EnHL) is a novel measure that quantifies the time over which short-term temporal correlations in a time series deteriorate to an uncorrelated, random structure. The current study suggested and tested three hypotheses about how characteristics of the neuromuscular postural control system may affect stabilometric EnHL: (H1) control system activity hypothesis: EnHL decreases with increased frequency of control system interventions adjusting COP motion; (H2) abundance of states hypothesis: EnHL decreases with increased number of mechanically equivalent states available to the postural system; and (H3) neurologic process hierarchy hypothesis: EnHL increases if postural control functions shift from the spinal level to the motor cortex.