Voluntary Motion Research Articles

Voluntary Head Rotational Velocity and Implications for Brain Injury Risk Metrics.

We investigated whether humans could sustain high head rotational velocities without brain injury. Rotational velocity has long been implicated for predicting concussion risk, and has recently been used to develop the rotational velocity-based Brain Injury Criterion (BrIC). To assess the efficacy of rotational velocity and BrIC for predicting concussion risk, we instrumented 9 male subjects with sensor-laden mouthguards and measured six-degree-of-freedom head accelerations for 27 rapid voluntary head rotations. The fastest rotations produced peak rotational velocities of 12.6, 17.4, and 25.0 rad/s in the coronal, sagittal, and horizontal planes, respectively. All of these exceeded the corresponding medians from padded sports impacts (8.9, 10.7, and 8.4 rad/s, respectively) and, in the case of sagittal and horizontal rotation, were within 1 standard deviation of published concussion averages. In the horizontal plane, four voluntary rotations exceeded the concussive impact median BrIC. The area under the precision-recall curve was lower in BrIC (0.49) than just using horizontal rotational acceleration (0.8), which distinguished concussive and subconcussive motions better. Voluntary motions produced less than 4% max principal strain (MPS) in finite element simulation, 5 times below predictions from dummy impacts used to develop BrIC. Despite having the highest critical velocity in BrIC, coronal rotation produced more tract-oriented strain in the corpus callosum than other planes. Baseline and post-experiment neurological testing revealed no significant deficits. We find that the head can tolerate high-velocity, low-acceleration rotational inputs too slow to produce substantial brain deformation. These findings suggest that the time regime over which angular velocities occur must be carefully considered for concussion prediction.

Skin-touch-actuated textile-based triboelectric nanogenerator with black phosphorus for durable biomechanical energy harvesting

Textiles that are capable of harvesting biomechanical energy via triboelectric effects are of interest for self-powered wearable electronics. Fabrication of conformable and durable textiles with high triboelectric outputs remains challenging. Here we propose a washable skin-touch-actuated textile-based triboelectric nanogenerator for harvesting mechanical energy from both voluntary and involuntary body motions. Black phosphorus encapsulated with hydrophobic cellulose oleoyl ester nanoparticles serves as a synergetic electron-trapping coating, rendering a textile nanogenerator with long-term reliability and high triboelectricity regardless of various extreme deformations, severe washing, and extended environmental exposure. Considerably high output (~250–880 V, ~0.48–1.1 µA cm−2) can be attained upon touching by hand with a small force (~5 N) and low frequency (~4 Hz), which can power light-emitting diodes and a digital watch. This conformable all-textile-nanogenerator is incorporable onto cloths/skin to capture the low output of 60 V from subtle involuntary friction with skin, well suited for users’ motion or daily operations.

Correspondences Between Music and Involuntary Human Micromotion During Standstill.

The relationships between human body motion and music have been the focus of several studies characterizing the correspondence between voluntary motion and various sound features. The study of involuntary movement to music, however, is still scarce. Insight into crucial aspects of music cognition, as well as characterization of the vestibular and sensorimotor systems could be largely improved through a description of the underlying links between music and involuntary movement. This study presents an analysis aimed at quantifying involuntary body motion of a small magnitude (micromotion) during standstill, as well as assessing the correspondences between such micromotion and different sound features of the musical stimuli: pulse clarity, amplitude, and spectral centroid. A total of 71 participants were asked to stand as still as possible for 6 min while being presented with alternating silence and music stimuli: Electronic Dance Music (EDM), Classical Indian music, and Norwegian fiddle music (Telespringar). The motion of each participant's head was captured with a marker-based, infrared optical system. Differences in instantaneous position data were computed for each participant and the resulting time series were analyzed through cross-correlation to evaluate the delay between motion and musical features. The mean quantity of motion (QoM) was found to be highest across participants during the EDM condition. This musical genre is based on a clear pulse and rhythmic pattern, and it was also shown that pulse clarity was the metric that had the most significant effect in induced vertical motion across conditions. Correspondences were also found between motion and both brightness and loudness, providing some evidence of anticipation and reaction to the music. Overall, the proposed analysis techniques provide quantitative data and metrics on the correspondences between micromotion and music, with the EDM stimulus producing the clearest music-induced motion patterns. The analysis and results from this study are compatible with embodied music cognition and sensorimotor synchronization theories, and provide further evidence of the movement inducing effects of groove-related music features and human response to sound stimuli. Further work with larger data sets, and a wider range of stimuli, is necessary to produce conclusive findings on the subject.

Repetitive Control of Electrical Stimulation for Tremor Suppression

Tremor is a rapid involuntary movement often seen in patients with neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. This debilitating oscillation can be suppressed by applying functional electrical stimulation (FES) within a closed-loop control system. However, conventional implementations use classical control methods and have proved capable of only limited performance. This paper establishes the feasibility of embedding repetitive control (RC) action to exploit the capability of learning from experience to completely suppress tremor at the wrist via FES regulated co-contraction of wrist extensors/flexors. A nonlinear model structure and associated identification procedure are first proposed to guarantee stability and performance of the RC system. Then a linearizing control approach is developed to facilitate transparent RC design, together with a mechanism to preserve patients’ voluntary intention. Experimental evaluation is performed with both unimpaired and neurologically impaired participants using a validated wrist-rig. For the former group, a novel electromechanical system is employed to induce tremor artificially. Results are bench-marked against a well-known classical filtering technique to establish the efficacy of the RC approach. These confirm that the proposed control system with the developed model identification procedure can increase tremor suppression by 43.3% compared with conventional filtering. In addition, the mechanism reduces the interference of RC action with voluntary motion by 20.2% compared with conventional filtering.

The impact of language on gesture in descriptions of voluntary motion in Czech and French adults and children

AbstractThe present study compares adults, five- and ten-year-old speakers of Czech (a satellite-framed language) and French (a verb-framed language) during the task of describing short animated videos displaying various voluntary motion events. In this research domain, Czech is a hitherto unexplored language whose specifics make it interestingly different from other typologically similar languages. Our focus is on the semantic level of the multimodal expression of motion. We found that in spite of substantial differences in their typical verbal patterns due to the particularities of their respective languages, French speakers and Czech speakers tend to produce the same gestural patterns. Although this phenomenon was observed in all age groups, a cross-language positive effect of age on semantic density of speech as well as gesture was also found. These results are discussed in light of models of multimodal development in language acquisition.

Markerless motion estimation for motion-compensated clinical brain imaging

Motion-compensated brain imaging can dramatically reduce the artifacts and quantitative degradation associated with voluntary and involuntary subject head motion during positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and computed tomography (CT). However, motion-compensated imaging protocols are not in widespread clinical use for these modalities. A key reason for this seems to be the lack of a practical motion tracking technology that allows for smooth and reliable integration of motion-compensated imaging protocols in the clinical setting. We seek to address this problem by investigating the feasibility of a highly versatile optical motion tracking method for PET, SPECT and CT geometries. The method requires no attached markers, relying exclusively on the detection and matching of distinctive facial features. We studied the accuracy of this method in 16 volunteers in a mock imaging scenario by comparing the estimated motion with an accurate marker-based method used in applications such as image guided surgery. A range of techniques to optimize performance of the method were also studied. Our results show that the markerless motion tracking method is highly accurate (<2 mm discrepancy against a benchmarking system) on an ethnically diverse range of subjects and, moreover, exhibits lower jitter and estimation of motion over a greater range than some marker-based methods. Our optimization tests indicate that the basic pose estimation algorithm is very robust but generally benefits from rudimentary background masking. Further marginal gains in accuracy can be achieved by accounting for non-rigid motion of features. Efficiency gains can be achieved by capping the number of features used for pose estimation provided that these features adequately sample the range of head motion encountered in the study. These proof-of-principle data suggest that markerless motion tracking is amenable to motion-compensated brain imaging and holds good promise for a practical implementation in clinical PET, SPECT and CT systems.

Autonomic responses during acute myocardial infarction in the rat model: implications for arrhythmogenesis.

Background Autonomic responses participate in the pathophysiology of acute myocardial infarction, but their precise time course remains unclear. Here, we investigated the autonomic activity and ventricular tachyarrhythmias in conscious, unrestrained rats post-infarction. Methods The left coronary artery was ligated in 12 Wistar rats, and six rats were sham operated, followed by 24-h electrocardiographic recording via implanted telemetry transmitters. Sympathetic activity was assessed by detrended fluctuation analysis and vagal activity by time- and frequency-domain analysis of heart rate variability. The duration of the ventricular tachyarrhythmias was measured, and voluntary motion served as a marker of heart failure. Results In sham-operated rats, heart rate and sympathetic activity remained low, whereas vagal activity rose progressively after the fourth hour. Post-ligation, medium-sized antero-septal necrosis was observed, reaching ~20% of the left ventricular volume; tachyarrhythmias were frequent, displaying a bimodal curve, and motion counts were low. Vagal activity decreased early post-ligation, coinciding with a high incidence of tachyarrhythmias, but tended to rise subsequently in rats with higher motion counts. Sympathetic activity increased after the third hour, along with a second tachyarrhythmia peak, and remained elevated throughout the 24-h period. Conclusions Vagal withdrawal, followed by gradual sympathetic activation, may participate in arrhythmogenesis during acute myocardial infarction.

Medicine and Religion in Early Dominican Demonology

The article explores the theories of Roland of Cremonaop(†1259), the first Dominican master of theology in Paris and a practising physician, regarding demonic influence on body and soul. Roland uses contemporary neurological theories of voluntary motion and cognition to explain how precisely demons might move the bodily members of possessed subjects, induce seductive images and implant scientific knowledge. The complex interaction of fields of knowledge demonstrated in his unique theories sheds light on the intellectual climate of the early thirteenth century in general, and of the early Parisian Dominican school in particular.

The Actions of Spirit and Appetite: Voluntary Motion in Galen

AbstractGalen is criticized for combining Plato’s tripartition-cum-trilocation of the soul, in which each part constitutes its own source of motivation, with the demand that the faculty of voluntary motion is limited to the rational part, being the only one located in the brain and having access to the relevant nerves. While scholars have concentrated on small nerves as connective organs, this paper focuses on thepneuma, blood and innate heat. When the latter is increased, the irrational parts can affect the brain’s function to such an extent that the rational part’s volitions are reduced to their own desires.

The mind-body Cartesian dualism and psychiatry

The French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) argued that the natures of mind and body are completely different from one another and that each could exist by itself. How can these two structures with different natures causally interact in order to give rise to a human being with voluntary bodily motions and sensations? Even today, the problem of mind-body causal interaction remains a matter of debate.

The Expression of Upward Motion by Russian Speakers Acquiring French or English as a Foreign Language

AbstractResearch on multilingual acquisition has investigated various combinations of languages to identify the factors determining how learners express motion. Our research examines the semantics of motion expression in learners whose first language (L1) exhibits more variation than their foreign language (L2/L3). The present study compares upward motion expression in L1Russian instructed learners of L2English and L3French at an elementary level of proficiency. Drawing on second language acquisition (SLA) scenarios reported in previous research literature, we examine the extent to which the learners approximate target patterns. L2/L3 users and L1 control groups orally described animated clips (Hendriks &amp; Hickmann, 2011) showing animals performing voluntary upward motion. Results show that, despite the use of neutral generics, L3French learners successfully approximated a verb‐framed pattern typical of L1French. L3French learners also showed the emergence of additional target motion components. L2English learners heavily relied on generic neutral verbs, which were used only occasionally by L1 speakers of English and never by L1 speakers of Russian. We argue that the learners’ approximation of a target system depends on the degree of overlap between generic means of motion expression available in a target language and its typical target means of motion expression.

Gantry rotational motion-induced blur in cone-beam computed tomography.

As neuro-endovascular image-guided interventions (EIGIs) make use of higher resolution detectors, gantry rotational motion-induced blur becomes more noticeable in acquired projections as well as reconstructed images by reducing the visibility of vascular and device features whose visualization could be critical in the treatment of vascular pathology. Motion-induced blur in projections views is a function of an object's position in the field-of-view (FOV), gantry rotational speed, and frame capture or exposure time. In this work different frame rates were used to investigate the effects of blurring from individual projections on the reconstructed image. To test the effects of these parameters on reconstructed images, a regular pattern phantom of small objects was simulated and projection views were generated at various different frame rates for a given simulated rotational velocity. The reconstruction was made using a linear interpolation of filtered backprojections. Images reconstructed from lower frame rates showed significant blurring in the azimuthal direction, increasingly worse towards the periphery of the image. However, those reconstructed from higher frame rates showed significantly less blur throughout the entire FOV. While lower frame rates could be used with slower gantry speeds this would increase the risk of voluntary or involuntary patient motion contributing to blur over the entire FOV. A high frame rate used with high gantry speeds could reliable provide images without gantry-motion blur while reducing the risk of patient-motion blur. Frame rates exceeding 2000 fps available with photon counting detectors such as the X-counter Actaeon1 are available.

Audiovisual biofeedback improves the correlation between internal/external surrogate motion and lung tumor motion.

Breathing management can reduce breath-to-breath (intrafraction) and day-by-day (interfraction) variability in breathing motion while utilizing the respiratory motion of internal and external surrogates for respiratory guidance. Audiovisual (AV) biofeedback, an interactive personalized breathing motion management system, has been developed to improve reproducibility of intra- and interfraction breathing motion. However, the assumption of the correlation of respiratory motion between surrogates and tumors is not always verified during medical imaging and radiation treatment. Therefore, the aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that the correlation of respiratory motion between surrogates and tumors is the same under free breathing without guidance (FB) and with AV biofeedback guidance for voluntary motion management. For 13 lung cancer patients receiving radiotherapy, 2D coronal and sagittal cine-MR images were acquired across two MRI sessions (pre- and mid-treatment) with two breathing conditions: (a) FB and (b) AV biofeedback, totaling 88 patient measurements. Simultaneously, the external respiratory motion of the abdomen was measured. The internal respiratory motion of the diaphragm and lung tumor was retrospectively measured from 2D coronal and sagittal cine-MR images. The correlation of respiratory motion between surrogates and tumors was calculated using Pearson's correlation coefficient for: (a) abdomen to tumor (abdomen-tumor) and (b) diaphragm to tumor (diaphragm-tumor). The correlations were compared between FB and AV biofeedback using several metrics: abdomen-tumor and diaphragm-tumor correlations with/without ≥5 mm tumor motion range and with/without adjusting for phase shifts between the signals. Compared to FB, AV biofeedback improved abdomen-tumor correlation by 11% (p = 0.12) from 0.53 to 0.59 and diaphragm-tumor correlation by 13% (p = 0.02) from 0.55 to 0.62. Compared to FB, AV biofeedback improved abdomen-tumor correlation by 17% (p = 0.01) and diaphragm-tumor correlation by 15% (p < 0.01) while correcting 0.3 s (p = 0.54) and 0.2 s (p = 0.19) phase shifts, respectively. In addition, AV biofeedback with ≥5 mm tumor motion range, compared to FB improved abdomen-tumor correlation by 14% (p = 0.18) and diaphragm-tumor correlation by 17% (p = 0.01). The highest abdomen-tumor and diaphragm-tumor correlations were found using ≥5 mm tumor motion range and phase shifts, resulting in a 12% improvement in AV biofeedback. Our results demonstrated that AV biofeedback improves the correlation of respiratory motion between surrogates and the tumor. This suggests a need for AV biofeedback for respiratory guidance utilizing respiratory surrogates during image-guided and MRI-guided radiotherapy in thoracic regions.

Damage Accumulation Modeling and Rate Dependency of Spinal Dura Mater.

As the strongest of the meningeal tissues, the spinal dura mater plays an important role in the overall behavior of the spinal cord-meningeal complex (SCM). It follows that the accumulation of damage affects the dura mater's ability to protect the cord from excessive mechanical loads. Unfortunately, current computational investigations of spinal cord injury (SCI) etiology typically do not include postyield behavior. Therefore, a more detailed description of the material behavior of the spinal dura mater, including characterization of damage accumulation, is required to comprehensively study SCI. Continuum mechanics-based viscoelastic damage theories have been previously applied to other biological tissues; however, the current work is the first to report damage accumulation modeling in a tissue of the SCM complex. Longitudinal (i.e., cranial-to-caudal long-axis) samples of ovine cervical dura mater were tensioned-to-failure at one of three strain rates (quasi-static, 0.05/s, and 0.3/s). The resulting stress-strain data were fit to a hyperelastic continuum damage model to characterize the strain-rate-dependent subfailure and failure behavior. The results show that the damage behavior of the fibrous and matrix components of the dura mater are strain-rate dependent, with distinct behaviors when exposed to strain rates above that experienced during normal voluntary neck motion suggesting the possible existence of a protective mechanism.

Review of devices used in neuromuscular electrical stimulation for stroke rehabilitation.

Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), specifically functional electrical stimulation (FES) that compensates for voluntary motion, and therapeutic electrical stimulation (TES) aimed at muscle strengthening and recovery from paralysis are widely used in stroke rehabilitation. The electrical stimulation of muscle contraction should be synchronized with intended motion to restore paralysis. Therefore, NMES devices, which monitor electromyogram (EMG) or electroencephalogram (EEG) changes with motor intention and use them as a trigger, have been developed. Devices that modify the current intensity of NMES, based on EMG or EEG, have also been proposed. Given the diversity in devices and stimulation methods of NMES, the aim of the current review was to introduce some commercial FES and TES devices and application methods, which depend on the condition of the patient with stroke, including the degree of paralysis.

Reduced Sympathetic Stimulus and Angiotensin 1-7 Are Related to Diastolic Dysfunction in Spinal Cord-Injured Subjects.

Chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) is often associated with reductions in left ventricular (LV) diastolic function. Impairments in sympathetic activity and activation of the renin-angiotensin system are reported in SCI individuals and may hypothetically be implicated in this association. Hence, the present study verified the relationship between these two neuro-hormonal and cardiac functional and structural characteristics in SCI individuals. Twenty-two men with SCI (injury level above T6 and no voluntary motion below the injury) and 11 able-bodied men were evaluated by clinical, hemodynamic, laboratory, and echocardiographic analysis and had plasmatic renin, angiotensin I (ANGI), angiotensin II (ANGII), angiotensin 1-7 (ANG1-7), and noradrenaline levels measured. SCI subjects had lower noradrenaline (p = 0.003) and higher ANG1-7 (p = 0.009), but similar renin, ANGI, and ANGII levels when compared with able-bodied individuals. In SCI individuals, results of multi-variable analysis showed that higher Em, a marker of better LV diastolic function, was directly associated with ANG1-7 (p = 0.05) or ANG1-7/ANGII ratio (p = 0.007), whereas lower noradrenaline levels were independently associated with worse LV diastolic function, as assessed by E/Em ratio (p = 0.028). In conclusion, these results suggest that reduced sympathetic activity and expression of ANG1-7 may be involved in SCI-related diastolic dysfunction.

Conceptualising voluntary motion events beyond language use: A comparison of English and Chinese speakers’ similarity judgments

This study explores the relationship between language and cognition by testing how monolingual speakers (3-year-olds, 8-year-olds and adults) who speak languages with partial typological differences in motion description (English and Chinese) respond to visual motion event stimuli in a triads matching task. The results suggest, first of all, that the two groups of 3-year-olds are predominantly path-oriented, as evidenced by their significantly longer fixation on path-match videos rather than manner-match videos in a preferential-looking scheme. Using categorical measurement of overt choices, the older children and adults showed no particular preference for either manner- or path-similarity criteria. However, the analysis using continuous measurement of reaction time revealed that adults were significantly quicker in responding to voluntary motion stimuli than the older children of 8 years due to their cognitive maturity; manner-matched choices were decided in a significantly shorter time than path-matched choices, and Chinese participants were found to be significantly faster than their English peers in response. Overall, our results indicate that children's non-linguistic thought is similar prior to the internalisation of the lexicalisation patterns of motion events in their native languages, but it does not show language-specific divergences after such habitual use.

English

Tongue drive system (TDS) is a tongue operated unobtrusive assistive technology,which can potentially provide people with severe disabilities with effective access and environment control.It translate user’s intentions into control commands by detecting and classifying their voluntary tongue motion utilizing a small permanent magnet,secured on the tongue and an array of magnetic sensors mounted on the mouth the magnetic sensor are nothing but hall effect sensors. a hall effect sensor is a transducerthat varies its output voltage in response to changes in magnetic field.in its simplest form the sensor operates as an analogue transducer, directly returning a voltage. With a known magnetic field, its distance from the hall plate can be determined. Wheel chair is made up of high torque geared DC motors, the motors direction can be changed through the set of instructions given from the hall effect sensor and the action of these instructions is already loaded into the microcontroller using embedded C programming. Complete system proposed in this paper has been designed around PIC microcontroller and a RF module. The design has been tested and result achieved confirms the design approach illustrated.

Design and validation of a novel mechatronic transmission system for a wearable tremor suppression device

Traditional treatments, medication and surgery, for tremor management in Parkinson’s disease have shown varying effectiveness carry a risk of significant side effects. Recent research and development of wearable tremor suppression technology have shown a promising third solution for tremor management. This paper presents the design of a novel multi-channel mechatronic splitter (MMS) for use in wearable tremor suppression devices. This mechatronic system allows a single drive motor to support multiple independent outputs. The operation (speed and direction) of the MMS is controlled by a 2 W DC motor. This low power characteristic may provide a promising approach to achieving a prolonged operating life for wearable devices. Furthermore, the size of the MMS can be scaled proportionally according to different applications for optimal performance. This paper describes the design, modeling, implementation and characterization of the MMS. The weight of the MMS prototype is 129 g, the maximum output speed is 120 rpm, and the maximum continuous torque is 0.15 Nm. In addition, recorded tremor motion along with voluntary movement from 7 individuals with Parkinson’s disease was used to validate the performance of the MMS. The MMS was controlled to suppress tremor motion while following the voluntary movement of the subject. An average of 12.4% RMS error in voluntary motion tracking was achieved on a dynamic tremor suppression test.

Analyze the Human Movements to Help CNS to Shape the Synergy using CNMF and Pattern Recognition

The Biomedical Signals have been studied for developing human control systems to improving the quality of life. The EMG signal is one of the main types of biomedical signals. It is a convoluted signal. This signal (EMG signal) controlled by the Central nervous system (CNS). It has been a long time expected that the human central nervous system (CNS) uses flexible combinations of some muscles synergy (MS) to solve and control redundant movements. Synergy muscles activities are different in a single muscle. In the concept of Synergy muscle, the CNS does not directly control the activation of a large number of muscles. There are two main movements can help CNS to shape the synergy. The automatic body response and the voluntary actions. These activities remain not too bright. Some studies support the hypothesis that the automatic body responses could be used as a reference to familiarize the voluntary efforts. It has been validating by analyzing the human voluntary movement and the automatic mechanical motions from the muscle synergy. Based on the validation, there was a proposition that the automatic synergy motion may express some features which could support the CNS to shape the voluntary synergy motion using the nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF). Thus the target of the presenting work is to analyses the human movements from the muscle synergy to help CNS shapes the synergy movement by suggestion using the concatenated non-negative matrix factorization (CNMF) method and the pattern recognition method. Then compare the two results and see if that help CNS to shape the synergy movements and which method has more accuracy.