Experimental measure of arm stiffness during single reaching movements with a time-frequency analysis

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We tested an innovative method to estimate joint stiffness and damping during multijoint unfettered arm movements. The technique employs impulsive perturbations and a time-frequency analysis to estimate the arm's mechanical properties along a reaching trajectory. Each single impulsive perturbation provides a continuous estimation on a single-reach basis, making our method ideal to investigate motor adaptation in the presence of force fields and to study the control of movement in impaired individuals with limited kinematic repeatability. In contrast with previous dynamic stiffness studies, we found that stiffness varies during movement, achieving levels higher than during static postural control. High stiffness was associated with elevated reflexive activity. We observed a decrease in stiffness and a marked reduction in long-latency reflexes around the reaching movement velocity peak. This pattern could partly explain the difference between the high stiffness reported in postural studies and the low stiffness measured in dynamic estimation studies, where perturbations are typically applied near the peak velocity point.