Journal
JOURNAL OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY
Volume 104, Issue 6, Pages 3064-3073Publisher
AMER PHYSIOLOGICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1152/jn.00318.2010
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Italian Health Ministry
- Italian University Ministry
- Italian Space Agency
- European Union FP7 Information and Communication Technologies [247959]
- Adaptive Modular Architectures for Rich Motor Skills [248311]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Cappellini G, Ivanenko YP, Dominici N, Poppele RE, Lacquaniti F. Migration of motor pool activity in the spinal cord reflects body mechanics in human locomotion. J Neurophysiol 104: 3064-3073, 2010. First published September 29, 2010; doi: 10.1152/jn.00318.2010. During the evolution of bipedal modes of locomotion, a sequential rostrocaudal activation of trunk muscles due to the undulatory body movements was replaced by more complex and discrete bursts of activity. Nevertheless, the capacity for segmental rhythmogenesis and the rostrocaudal propagation of spinal cord activity has been conserved. In humans, motoneurons of different muscles are arranged in columns, with a specific grouping of muscles at any given segmental level. The muscle patterns of locomotor activity and the biomechanics of the body center of mass have been studied extensively, but their interrelationship remains poorly understood. Here we mapped the electromyographic activity recorded from 30 bilateral leg muscles onto the spinal cord in approximate rostrocaudal locations of the motoneuron pools during walking and running in humans. We found that the rostrocaudal displacements of the center of bilateral motoneuron activity mirrored the changes in the energy due to the center-of-body mass motion. The results suggest that biomechanical mechanisms of locomotion, such as the inverted pendulum in walking and the pogo-stick bouncing in running, may be tightly correlated with specific modes of progression of motor pool activity rostrocaudally in the spinal cord.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available