Quantifying Bilateral Coupling in Wrist Motor Control

Quantifying Bilateral Coupling in Wrist Motor Control

Wijntjes, J.D.

Van der Helm, F.C.T. (mentor)
De Vlugt, E. (mentor)

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

BioMechanical Engineering

BME

2014-11-24

Bilateral coupling, the synchronized behavior between the upper limbs in time and direction, is a well known movement phenomenon for babies. After the age of 11 months, this coupling is largely inhibited so that each limb can be coordinated individually. For stroke patients however, bilateral coupling tends to return. The goal of this study is to experimentally identify bilateral coupling and quantify the underlying dynamics of the wrist joint. The experiment consist of a tracking task which is performed unimanually and bimanually. Conditions and levels of difficulties are varied within each task to investigate the behavior of bilateral coupling. Fifteen healthy adults and two stroke patients were tested in a setup with two haptic manipulators. MIMO SIPE techniques were used to identify and quantify the underlying dynamics of the wrist joint by fitting the data toA a newly designed bilateral neuromusculoskeletal model. Results showed that cross lateral proprioceptive reflexes could be identified in both the control group and for the stroke patients. By analyzing the interdependency of the parameters, a linear behavior in the intrinsic stiffness was estimated across the two limbs. A linear behavior implies a bilateral activation of the limbs. For stroke patients, cross lateral proprioceptive reflexes and bilateral activation of the limbs were dominating during the bimanual condition. These findings are of great importance for rehabilitation techniques. An increased coupled behavior of the limbs could be used either to increase neural activity, or should be suppressed because the paretic limb might influence the healthy limb.

bilateral coupling
stroke
SIPE
cross lateral proprioceptive reflex
bilateral activation

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1ff69f59-58c5-4dfe-9f8c-f1db519b3d46

2014-12-18

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2014 Wijntjes, J.D.