Simulation analysis of muscle activity changes with altered body orientations during pedaling

Testing hypotheses related to the effect of gravitational orientation on neural control mechanisms is difficult for most locomotor tasks, like walking, because body orientation with respect to gravity affects both sensorimotor control and task mechanics. To examine the mechanical effect of body orientation independently from changes in workload and posture, Brown et al. (J. Biomech. 29 p. 1349, 1996) studied pedaling at altered body orientations. They found that subjects pedaling at different orientations changed needlessly their muscle excitations, putatively to preserve body-upright pedaling kinematics. We tested the feasibility of this hypothesis using simulations based on a three biomechanical-function pair organization for control of lower limb muscles (limb extension/flexion pair, extension/flexion transition pair, and foot plantarflexion/dorsiflexion pair), where each pair consists of alternating agonistic/antagonistic muscles. Adjustment of only three parameters, one to scale the muscle excitations of each pair, was sufficient to preserve pedaling kinematics to altered body orientation. Because these adjustments produced changes in muscle excitation and net joint moments similar to those observed in pedaling subjects, the hypothesis is supported. Moreover, the effectiveness of a decoupled gain adjustment procedure where each parameter was adjusted by error in only one aspect of the pedaling trajectory during each iteration (i.e., cadence adjusted the Ext/Flex parameter; peak-to-peak variation in crank velocity over the cycle adjusted the transition parameter; average ankle angle over the cycle adjusted the foot parameter) further supports the distinct function of each muscle pair.