Abstract

Underwater walking is one of the most common hydrotherapeutic exercises. Therefore, understanding muscular control during underwater walking is important for optimizing training regimens. The effects of the water environment on walking are mainly related to the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic theories of buoyancy and drag force. To date, muscular control during underwater walking has been investigated at the individual muscle level. However, it is recognized that the human nervous system modularly controls multiple muscles through muscle synergies, which are sets of muscles that work together. We found that the same set of muscle synergies was shared between the two walking tasks. However, some task-dependent modulation was found in the activation combination across muscles and temporal activation patterns of the muscle synergies. The results suggest that the human nervous system modulates activation of lower-limb muscles during water walking by finely tuning basic locomotor muscle synergies that are used during land walking to meet the biomechanical requirements for walking in the water environment.

Details

Title
Basic locomotor muscle synergies used in land walking are finely tuned during underwater walking
Author
Yokoyama Hikaru 1 ; Kato Tatsuya 2 ; Kaneko Naotsugu 2 ; Kobayashi Hirofumi 3 ; Hoshino Motonori 4 ; Kokubun Takanori 5 ; Nakazawa Kimitaka 3 

 Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Tokyo, Japan (GRID:grid.136594.c); Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan (GRID:grid.54432.34) (ISNI:0000 0004 0614 710X); The University of Tokyo, Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Meguro, Japan (GRID:grid.26999.3d) (ISNI:0000 0001 2151 536X) 
 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan (GRID:grid.54432.34) (ISNI:0000 0004 0614 710X); The University of Tokyo, Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Meguro, Japan (GRID:grid.26999.3d) (ISNI:0000 0001 2151 536X) 
 The University of Tokyo, Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Meguro, Japan (GRID:grid.26999.3d) (ISNI:0000 0001 2151 536X) 
 College, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, Saitama, Japan (GRID:grid.419714.e) (ISNI:0000 0004 0596 0617) 
 Saitama Prefectural University, Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Health and Social Services, Saitama, Japan (GRID:grid.412379.a) (ISNI:0000 0001 0029 3630) 
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2573125343
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.