Comparison of Trunk Activity during Gait Initiation and Walking in Humans

To understand the role of trunk muscles in maintenance of dynamic postural equilibrium we investigate trunk movements during gait initiation and walking, performing trunk kinematics analysis, Erector spinae muscle (ES) recordings and dynamic analysis. ES muscle expressed a metachronal descending pattern of activity during walking and gait initiation. In the frontal and horizontal planes, lateroflexion and rotation occur before in the upper trunk and after in the lower trunk. Comparison of ES muscle EMGs and trunk kinematics showed that trunk muscle activity precedes corresponding kinematics activity, indicating that the ES drive trunk movement during locomotion and thereby allowing a better pelvis mobilization. EMG data showed that ES activity anticipates propulsive phases in walking with a repetitive pattern, suggesting a programmed control by a central pattern generator. Our findings also suggest that the programs for gait initiation and walking overlap with the latter beginning before the first has ended.

• Publication year

  2009

• Venue

  PLoS ONE

• Publication date

  2009-12-07

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0008193PMID 19997606PMCID 2782139
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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