walking is not like reaching evidence from periodic mechanical perturbations散步不像周期性的机械扰动的证据.pdfVIP

Walking Is Not Like Reaching: Evidence from Periodic Mechanical Perturbations 1 1,2 Jooeun Ahn *, Neville Hogan 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, 2 Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America Abstract The control architecture underlying human reaching has been established, at least in broad outline. However, despite extensive research, the control architecture underlying human locomotion remains unclear. Some studies show evidence of high-level control focused on lower-limb trajectories; others suggest that nonlinear oscillators such as lower-level rhythmic central pattern generators (CPGs) play a significant role. To resolve this ambiguity, we reasoned that if a nonlinear oscillator contributes to locomotor control, human walking should exhibit dynamic entrainment to periodic mechanical perturbation; entrainment is a distinctive behavior of nonlinear oscillators. Here we present the first behavioral evidence that nonlinear neuro-mechanical oscillators contribute to the production of human walking, albeit weakly. As unimpaired human subjects walked at constant speed, we applied periodic torque pulses to the ankle at periods different from their preferred cadence. The gait period of 18 out of 19 subjects entrained to this mechanical perturbation, converging to match that of the perturbation. Significantly, entrainment occurred only if the perturbation period was close to subjects’ preferred walking cadence: it exhibited a narrow basin of entrainment. Further, regardless of the phase within the walking cycle at which perturbation was initiated, subjects’ gait synchronized or phase-locked w