Dynamic stability of spine using stability-based optimization and muscle spindle reflex

A computational method for simulation of 3-D movement of the trunk under the control of 48 anatomically oriented muscle actions was developed. Neural excitation of muscles was set based on inverse dynamics approach along with the stability-based optimization. The effect of muscle spindle reflex response on the trunk movement stability was evaluated upon the application of a perturbation moment. The method was used to simulate the trunk movement from the upright standing to 60 degrees of flexion. Incorporation of the stability condition as an additional constraint in the optimization resulted in an increase in antagonistic activities demonstrating that the antagonistic co-activation acts to increase the trunk stability in response to self-induced postural internal perturbation. In presence of a 30 Nm flexion perturbation moment, muscle spindles decreased the induced deviation of the position and velocity profiles from the desired ones. The stability-generated co-activation decreased the reflexive response of muscle spindles to the perturbation demonstrating that the rise in muscle co-activation can ameliorate the corruption of afferent neural sensory system at the expense of higher loading of the spine.