Characterization of Muscle Synergies During Activities of Daily Living Using Surface EMG: A Functional Reference for...

Background/Objectives: The muscle synergy framework suggests that the central nervous system simplifies hand motor control by recruiting coordinated groups of muscles. However, the organization of these synergies across functional grasp types representative of activities of daily living remains incompletely understood. This study aimed to characterize muscle synergies across functional grasps and identify shared coordination patterns relevant for neuromuscular assessment. Methods: Muscle synergies were analysed in 26 healthy participants using a publicly available surface electromyography dataset. Five representative functional grasp types were selected, (cylindrical, lateral pinch, lumbrical, oblique, and tridigital pinch) and synergies were extracted using non-negative matrix factorization. Results: Four to five muscle synergies accounted for more than 90% of EMG variance across all grasp types. Despite grasp-specific differences, a consistent set of shared synergies was identified across conditions, explaining 92.5% of the total variance and being flexibly modulated depending on task demands. Extensor-related components showed a particularly consistent contribution across grasps. Conclusions: Functional hand grasping relies on a compact and reusable set of muscle synergies that are flexibly adapted to task demands. These findings support a modular organization of neuromuscular control and provide normative references that may be useful for the assessment of altered motor control in neuromuscular disorders, with potential applications in neurorehabilitation and assistive technologies.