Abstract
Timing of the Vibration of Arm Muscles Affects Grip Force Control The purpose of the study was to investigate how the timing of application of vibration to the arm muscles affects grip force. Eight healthy subjects performed similar tasks of lifting and holding an object without any vibration (NV) and with vibration applied to the extrinsic wrist and finger muscles at different times during the task: 1) applied immediately prior to the task performance (AFV) and 2) during the task performance (DFV). Peak grip force, static grip force, and acceleration of the object were recorded. Vibration applied to the muscles during the task performance did not affect grip force generation. However, when vibration was applied prior to the task performance, a significant increase in grip force was observed. We suggest that the differences in magnitudes of grip force between the conditions are associated with the availability of information from muscle spindles and/or joint and tactile afferents. It appears that vibration applied during the task performance affects only muscles spindles, while a five-minute vibration applied prior to the lift of the object affects both muscle spindles and joint and tactile afferents. The results of the study provide additional information on the availability of afferent information in the control of grip force.
Highlights
Appropriate modulation of grip force is essential for the performance of various activities of daily living, such as drinking, eating, buttoning a shirt, etc
Notice that grip force traces are quite similar in the no muscular vibration (NV) and DFV conditions
It is known that efficient grip force control depends on utilization of shortterm memory related to the lifting of the object obtained in the previous practice trials
Summary
Appropriate modulation of grip force is essential for the performance of various activities of daily living, such as drinking, eating, buttoning a shirt, etc. The physical properties of the object are perceived first by the object’s visual analysis followed by information from the fingers’ cutaneous mechanoreceptors (Jeannerod 1986; Johansson and Westling 1987; Johansson and Westling 1988; Gordon et al 1991; Quaney et al 2003) It seems that the central nervous system (CNS) controls grip force using feedforward and feedback commands (Johansson and Westling 1987; Gordon et al 1991; Johansson and Cole 1992). These signals are used to compare the actual and predicted forces: if a mismatch between them occurs, the motor command is corrected and the internal model is updated (Prochazka 1981; Miall 1996; Wolpert and Miall 1996)
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