Understanding movement control in infants through the analysis of limb intersegmental dynamics

One important component in the understanding of the control of limb movements is the way in which the central nervous system accounts for joint forces and torques that may be generated not only by muscle actions but by gravity and by passive reactions related to the movements of limb segments. In this study, we asked how the neuromotor system of young infants controls a range of active and passive forces to produce a stereotypic, nonintentional movement. We specifically analyzed limb intersegmental dynamics in spontaneous, cyclic leg movements (kicking) of varying intensity in supine 3-month-old human infants. Using inverse dynamics, we calculated the contributions of active (muscular) and passive (motion-dependent and gravitational) torque components at the hip, knee, and ankle joints from three-dimensional limb kinematics. To calculate joint torques, accurate estimates were needed of the limb's anthropometric parameters, which we determined using a model of the human body. Our analysis of limb intersegmental dynamics explicitly quantified the complex interplay of active and passive forces producing the simple, involuntary kicking movements commonly seen in 3-month-old infants. our results revealed that in nonvigorous kicks, hip joint reversal was the result of an extensor torque due to gravity, opposed by the combined flexor effect of the muscle torque and the total motion-dependent torque. The total motion-dependent torque increased as a hip flexor torque in more vigorous kicks; an extensor muscle torque was necessary to counteract the flexor influences of the total motion-dependent torque and, in the case of large ranges of motion, a flexor gravity torque as well. Thus, with changing passive torque influences due to motions of the linked segments, the muscle torques were adjusted to produce a net torque to reverse the kicking motion. As a consequence, despite considerable heterogeneity in the intensity, range of motion, coordination, and movement context of each kick, smooth trajectories resulted from the muscle torque, counteracting and complementing not only gravity but also the motion-dependent torques generated by movement of the linked segments.