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The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 83 No. 1 January 2000, pp. 288-300
Copyright ©2000 by the American Physiological Society
Human Physiology Section of the Scientific Institute Santa Lucia and the University of Rome "Tor Vergata", 00179 Rome, Italy
Grasso, R.,
M. Zago, and
F. Lacquaniti.
Interactions Between Posture and Locomotion: Motor Patterns in
Humans Walking With Bent Posture Versus Erect Posture. J. Neurophysiol. 83: 288-300, 2000. Human erect
locomotion is unique among living primates. Evolution selected specific
biomechanical features that make human locomotion mechanically
efficient. These features are matched by the motor patterns generated
in the CNS. What happens when humans walk with bent postures? Are
normal motor patterns of erect locomotion maintained or completely
reorganized? Five healthy volunteers walked straight and forward at
different speeds in three different postures (regular, knee-flexed, and
knee- and trunk-flexed) while their motion, ground reaction forces, and electromyographic (EMG) activity were recorded. The three postures imply large differences in the position of the center of body mass
relative to the body segments. The elevation angles of the trunk,
pelvis, and lower limb segments relative to the vertical in the
sagittal plane, the ground reaction forces and the rectified EMGs were
analyzed over the gait cycle. The waveforms of the elevation angles
along the gait cycle remained essentially unchanged irrespective of the
adopted postures. The first two harmonics of these kinematic waveforms
explain >95% of their variance. The phase shift but not the amplitude
ratio between the first harmonic of the elevation angle waveforms of
adjacent pairs was affected systematically by changes in posture.
Thigh, shank, and foot angles covaried close to a plane in all
conditions, but the plane orientation was systematically different in
bent versus erect locomotion. This was explained by the changes in the
temporal coupling among the three segments. For walking speeds >1 m
s
1, the plane orientation of bent locomotion indicates a
much lower mechanical efficiency relative to erect locomotion. Ground
reaction forces differed prominently in bent versus erect posture
displaying characteristics intermediate between those typical of
walking and those of running. Mean EMG activity was greater in bent
postures for all recorded muscles independent of the functional role.
The waveforms of the muscle activities and muscle synergies also were affected by the adopted posture. We conclude that maintaining bent
postures does not interfere either with the generation of segmental
kinematic waveforms or with the planar constraint of intersegmental
covariation. These characteristics are maintained at the expense of
adjustments in kinetic parameters, muscle synergies and the temporal
coupling among the oscillating body segments. We argue that an
integrated control of gait and posture is made possible because these
two motor functions share some common principles of spatial organization.
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