Decrease in trunk muscular response to perturbation with preactivation of lumbar spinal musculature

An experimental study of healthy subjects' trunk muscle responses to force perturbations at differing angles and steady state efforts.

To determine whether increased preactivation of muscles was associated with decreased likelihood of muscular activation in response to a transient force perturbation.

Trunk stability (ability to return to equilibrium position after a perturbation) requires the stiffness of appropriately activated muscles to prevent buckling and consequent "self-injury." Therefore, greater trunk muscle preactivation might decrease the likelihood of reflex muscle responses to small perturbations.

Each of 13 subjects stood in an apparatus with the pelvis immobilized. A harness around the thorax provided a preload and a force perturbation by a horizontal cable and a movable pulley attached to one of five anchorage points on a wall track surrounding the subject at angles of 0 degrees, 45 degrees, 90 degrees, 135 degrees, and 180 degrees to the forward direction. Subjects first equilibrated with a preload effort of nominally 20% or 40% of their maximum extension effort. Then a single full sine-wave force perturbation pulse of nominal amplitude, 7.5% or 15% of maximum effort, duration 80 milliseconds or 300 milliseconds, was applied at a random time, with three repeated trials of each test condition. The applied force (via a load cell) and the electromyographic activity of six right and left pairs of trunk muscles were recorded. Muscle responses were detected by two methods. 1) Shewhart method: electromyographic signal greater than "baseline" values by more than three standard deviations, and 2) Mean Electromyographic Difference method: mean electromyographic signal in a time window 25 to 150 milliseconds after the force perturbation greater than that in a 25- to 150-millisecond window before the perturbation.

Lower preload efforts were associated with more muscle responses (overall mean response detection rate = 33% at low preload and 25% at high preload). Using the Shewhart method, there were significant differences by effort (P<0.05) for all abdominal muscles and for all left dorsal muscles except multifidus. Using the Mean Electromyographic Difference method, there were significant differences by effort (P<0.05) for the same dorsal muscles, but only for one of the abdominal muscles.

Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the spine can be stabilized by the stiffness of activated muscles, obviating the need for active muscle responses to perturbations.