Dynamics of the Human Cervical Spine and Neuromuscular Control

Abstract

AbstractThe influence of the neuromuscular control on the dynamics of the human cervical spine is investigated both experimentally and numerically within a long-term research addressed to the whiplash injury problem. First, the case of small perturbations along the sagittal plane is considered. Specific in vivo measurements highlight that the spinal behavior strictly depends on the muscular activity while contextual kineradiographic observations suggest that an approximate model for the neck could be implemented by considering an inverse pendulum scheme, if either ‘small’ extensions or ‘medium’ flexions are of concern. Although such a model is too simple to represent the complex spinal deformation during the whiplash event, it can still be used to address the study of some control issues. On this subject, specific numerical simulations show that the in vivo experiments could be reproduced by controlling this model via a delayed feedback. This is governed by the velocity of propagation of the action potent...