Feedforward postural adjustments in a simple two-joint synergy in patients with Parkinson's disease

Patients with Parkinson's disease, age-matched controls and young control subjects performed discrete elbow or wrist movements in a sagittal plane under the instruction to move one of the joints "as fast as possible." Relative stability of the other, postural joint was comparable in all 3 groups, while movement time was the highest in the patients and the lowest in young controls. Typically, EMG patterns in both muscle pairs acting at the joints demonstrated a commonly observed "tri-phasic" pattern. A cross-correlation analysis of the EMGs confirmed virtually simultaneous bursts in the wrist and elbow flexors and in the wrist and elbow extensors. In all 3 groups, there were no signs of anticipatory activation of postural muscles in about 90% of movements. We consider postural anticipation not a separate process, but a separate peripheral pattern of a single control process that may involve a number of joints and muscles. We conclude that the postural deficits in Parkinson's disease are not related to a basic deficit in the ability to generate feedforward postural adjustments but to other factors that may include the specificity of maintaining the vertical posture in the field of gravity.