ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Coordination amongst quadriceps muscles suggests neural regulation of internal joint stresses, not simplification of task performance.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neuromotor modules revealed by direct electrical stimulation of the human primary motor cortex.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Probabilistic inference of homonymous and heteronymous recurrent inhibition in human muscles from large-scale motor neuron recordings.Science advances · 2026Article
- Fatigue-induced changes in VMO-VL EMG correlation in individuals with patellofemoral pain.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Article
- A comparative analysis of co-contraction indices using synthetic EMG data: Implications for selection and interpretation.PloS one · 2026Article
- Quantifying the diverse contributions of hierarchical muscle interactions to motor function.iScience · 2025Article
- Postural control of sway dynamics on an unstable surface reduces similarity in activation patterns of synergistic lower leg muscles.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Article
- The Volitional Control of Individual Motor Units Is Constrained within Low-Dimensional Neural Manifolds by Common Inputs.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Dissecting muscle synergies in the task space.eLife · 2024Article
- Kinematics but not kinetics alterations to single-leg drop jump movements following a subject-tailored fatiguing protocol suggest an increased risk of ACL injury.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2024Article
- Two motor neuron synergies, invariant across ankle joint angles, activate the triceps surae during plantarflexion.The Journal of physiology · 2023Article
- Neuromechanical Properties of the Vastus Medialis and Vastus Lateralis in Adolescents With Patellofemoral Pain.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2023Article
- The Forces Generated by Agonist Muscles during Isometric Contractions Arise from Motor Unit Synergies.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Inhibition of knee joint sensory afferents alters covariation across strides between quadriceps muscles during locomotion.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2023Article
- Neuromuscular control: from a biomechanist's perspective.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2023Review
- Muscle redundancy is greatly reduced by the spatiotemporal nature of neuromuscular control.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences · 2023Article
- Mechanical disturbances applied by motorized ankle foot orthosis to adapt ankle muscles activation-A validation study.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2023Article
- Estimating muscle activation from EMG using deep learning-based dynamical systems models.Journal of neural engineering · 2022Article
- The repeatability of neuromuscular activation strategies recorded in recreationally active individuals during cycling.European journal of applied physiology · 2022Article
- The effect of limb position on a static knee extension task can be explained with a simple spinal cord circuit model.Journal of neurophysiology · 2022Article
- Control of Mammalian Locomotion by Somatosensory Feedback.Comprehensive Physiology · 2021Article
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6 authors.
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Abstract
Many studies have demonstrated covariation between muscle activations during behavior, suggesting that muscles are not controlled independently. According to one common proposal, this covariation reflects simplification of task performance by the nervous system so that muscles with similar contributions to task variables are controlled together. Alternatively, this covariation might reflect regulation of low-level aspects of movements that are common across tasks, such as stresses within joints. We examined these issues by analyzing covariation patterns in quadriceps muscle activity during locomotion in rats. The three monoarticular quadriceps muscles (vastus medialis [VM], vastus lateralis [VL], and vastus intermedius [VI]) produce knee extension and so have identical contributions to task performance; the biarticular rectus femoris (RF) produces an additional hip flexion. Consistent with the proposal that muscle covariation is related to similarity of muscle actions on task variables, we found that the covariation between VM and VL was stronger than their covariations with RF. However, covariation between VM and VL was also stronger than their covariations with VI. Since all vastii have identical actions on task variables, this finding suggests that covariation between muscle activity is not solely driven by simplification of overt task performance. Instead, the preferentially strong covariation between VM and VL is consistent with the control of internal joint stresses: Since VM and VL produce opposing mediolateral forces on the patella, the high positive correlation between their activation minimizes the net mediolateral patellar force. These results provide important insights into the interpretation of muscle covariations and their role in movement control.
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