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Sensory synergy as environmental input integration

The development of a method to feed proper environmental inputs back to the central nervous system (CNS) remains one of the challenges in achieving natural movement when part of the body is replaced with an artificial device. Muscle synergies are widely accepted as a biologically plausible interpret...

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Autores principales: Alnajjar, Fady, Itkonen, Matti, Berenz, Vincent, Tournier, Maxime, Nagai, Chikara, Shimoda, Shingo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4292368/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25628523
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2014.00436
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author Alnajjar, Fady
Itkonen, Matti
Berenz, Vincent
Tournier, Maxime
Nagai, Chikara
Shimoda, Shingo
author_facet Alnajjar, Fady
Itkonen, Matti
Berenz, Vincent
Tournier, Maxime
Nagai, Chikara
Shimoda, Shingo
author_sort Alnajjar, Fady
collection PubMed
description The development of a method to feed proper environmental inputs back to the central nervous system (CNS) remains one of the challenges in achieving natural movement when part of the body is replaced with an artificial device. Muscle synergies are widely accepted as a biologically plausible interpretation of the neural dynamics between the CNS and the muscular system. Yet the sensorineural dynamics of environmental feedback to the CNS has not been investigated in detail. In this study, we address this issue by exploring the concept of sensory synergy. In contrast to muscle synergy, we hypothesize that sensory synergy plays an essential role in integrating the overall environmental inputs to provide low-dimensional information to the CNS. We assume that sensor synergy and muscle synergy communicate using these low-dimensional signals. To examine our hypothesis, we conducted posture control experiments involving lateral disturbance with nine healthy participants. Proprioceptive information represented by the changes on muscle lengths were estimated by using the musculoskeletal model analysis software SIMM. Changes on muscles lengths were then used to compute sensory synergies. The experimental results indicate that the environmental inputs were translated into the two dimensional signals and used to move the upper limb to the desired position immediately after the lateral disturbance. Participants who showed high skill in posture control were found to be likely to have a strong correlation between sensory and muscle signaling as well as high coordination between the utilized sensory synergies. These results suggest the importance of integrating environmental inputs into suitable low-dimensional signals before providing them to the CNS. This mechanism should be essential when designing the prosthesis' sensory system to make the controller simpler.
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spelling pubmed-42923682015-01-27 Sensory synergy as environmental input integration Alnajjar, Fady Itkonen, Matti Berenz, Vincent Tournier, Maxime Nagai, Chikara Shimoda, Shingo Front Neurosci Neuroscience The development of a method to feed proper environmental inputs back to the central nervous system (CNS) remains one of the challenges in achieving natural movement when part of the body is replaced with an artificial device. Muscle synergies are widely accepted as a biologically plausible interpretation of the neural dynamics between the CNS and the muscular system. Yet the sensorineural dynamics of environmental feedback to the CNS has not been investigated in detail. In this study, we address this issue by exploring the concept of sensory synergy. In contrast to muscle synergy, we hypothesize that sensory synergy plays an essential role in integrating the overall environmental inputs to provide low-dimensional information to the CNS. We assume that sensor synergy and muscle synergy communicate using these low-dimensional signals. To examine our hypothesis, we conducted posture control experiments involving lateral disturbance with nine healthy participants. Proprioceptive information represented by the changes on muscle lengths were estimated by using the musculoskeletal model analysis software SIMM. Changes on muscles lengths were then used to compute sensory synergies. The experimental results indicate that the environmental inputs were translated into the two dimensional signals and used to move the upper limb to the desired position immediately after the lateral disturbance. Participants who showed high skill in posture control were found to be likely to have a strong correlation between sensory and muscle signaling as well as high coordination between the utilized sensory synergies. These results suggest the importance of integrating environmental inputs into suitable low-dimensional signals before providing them to the CNS. This mechanism should be essential when designing the prosthesis' sensory system to make the controller simpler. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-01-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4292368/ /pubmed/25628523 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2014.00436 Text en Copyright © 2015 Alnajjar, Itkonen, Berenz, Tournier, Nagai and Shimoda. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Alnajjar, Fady
Itkonen, Matti
Berenz, Vincent
Tournier, Maxime
Nagai, Chikara
Shimoda, Shingo
Sensory synergy as environmental input integration
title Sensory synergy as environmental input integration
title_full Sensory synergy as environmental input integration
title_fullStr Sensory synergy as environmental input integration
title_full_unstemmed Sensory synergy as environmental input integration
title_short Sensory synergy as environmental input integration
title_sort sensory synergy as environmental input integration
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4292368/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25628523
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2014.00436
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