Muscle Synergies Underlying Voluntary Anteroposterior Sway Movements

Abstract

Stable postural control is a fundamental ability for humans, which requires complex interactions of several neural mechanisms. The deep analysis of this ability presents either diagnostic and rehabilitation potentials. In this study, seven healthy participants performing voluntary postural sway movements along the anteroposterior direction are analyzed. Muscle activity is decomposed with muscle synergies analysis in order to determine if it presents evidence of an internal modular organization. Results indicates that two modules are sufficient to account for over the 90% of muscle variability, suggesting a strong evidence for modular control. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.