Understanding of hand muscles involvement: Towards a linkage between biomechanical modeling and motor control theories

Abstract

This study aimed at testing the pertinence of mimicking motor control theories in biomechanical models as a strategic direction for improving the understanding of muscle involvement. The theory of "minimization of the secondary moments of the hand" was added to an initial biomechanical model and was tested for several anatomic hand configurations (intact hand, paralyzed hand with radial nerve palsy, and transferred hand after tendon transfers). Results showed that the muscle sharing is governed by the minimisation of secondary moment for each anatomic hand configuration. In particular, co-contractions of extensor muscles were used to stabilize the wrist joint in both intact and transferred hands. Overall, this study showed that specific tuning of motor control theories rules may represent a strategic direction for improving biomechanical models. Enhancements are suggested in order to generalize this approach to others musculoskeletal systems.