Coordination between voluntary movement and posture when pointing beyond arms length

A full protocol has been developed to study the relationship between the postural and pointing motor sub-tasks of a whole-body pointing movement. Subjects are asked to reach a target positioned in front of them, naturally or under some constrain imposition. Kinematic, dynamic and electromyographic data are simultaneously recorded by means of a passive motion capture system, three ground reaction force platforms and a wireless 32-channel electromyographic system. By exploiting dimensionality reduction algorithms and optimal control theory, the goal of such experiments is to improve the knowledge about the mechanisms exploited by the central nervous system to manage the complexity of such movements due to the large number of degrees of freedom involved.

People: Enrico Chiovetto, Marco Jacono, Bastien Berret

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Reconstruction of body movements from optoelectronic data during experimental trials Treated EMG recordings
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Muscle synergies extracted from EMG data and associated with one specific movement.

Conferences:

Chiovetto, E.; Dizio, P.A.; Lackner, J.R. Haptic stabilization of posture during quiet stance and rhythmic voluntary sway Society for Neuroscience (SFN) meeting, Abstract 411.19, San Diego (CA), November 2007

Chiovetto, E.; Jacono,M.; Sandini, G.; Pozzo, T. Relationships between focal and equilibrium components during a pointing task beyond arm length Neural Control of Movement (NCM) meeting, Abstract E43, Naples (FL), April 2008

Chiovetto, E.; Nori F.; Sandini, G.; Pozzo, T. Muscle synergies as a tool to study coordination between voluntary movements and posture Society for Neuroscience (SFN) meeting, Abstract 960.15, Washington DC, November 2008

Chiovetto, E.; Pozzo, T. Organization of focal and postural motor modules during whole body pointing beyond arm’s length Neural Control of Movement (NCM) meeting, (submitted) Naples (FlL), April 2009

Papers:

Fautrelle L.; Berret B.; Chiovetto E. ; Pozzo T.; Bonnetblanc B.; Equilibrium constraints do not affect muscle activation patterns during the initiation of a whole-body reaching movement Submitted to Neuroscience, January 2009