Short- and long-term adaptation of grip dynammics and arm kinematics to altered gravito-inertial environments
(2021)
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- Abstract
- During object manipulation on Earth, muscular activities reflect an anticipation of the force of gravity. These loads must be compensated for or can be used to save muscular effort as well as to improve limb position sense. Furthermore, the gravitational vector constitutes a very important reference axis for spatial orientation. Given the promising future of Space exploration, a good understanding of the role played by gravity in sensorimotor control and of how the central nervous system adapts to novel gravito-inertial backgrounds is crucial. In this thesis, we study the dynamics of finger forces and the kinematics of the arm during object manipulation in humans exposed to such altered gravito-inertial environments. We first explore the coordination between arm movements and finger forces in Mars, Moon and micro- gravity during parabolic flight maneuvers. We then study sensorimotor coordination in upright and upside-down participants on the ground to test the contributions of body-centered and gravity-centered reference frames to upper-limb motor control. Finally, we study sensorimotor coordination in astronauts and observe that finger forces are finely tuned to object properties and to movement-induced inertial loads, both on the ground and in the weightless environment of the International Space Station. However, gravity appears to be critical to maintain movement accuracy in the absence of vision. These works contribute to our understanding of how gravity is accounted for during motor planning and control and of the impacts of novel gravito-inertial contexts on upper-limb motor control.
- Affiliations
UCLouvain SST/ICTM/INMA - Pôle en ingénierie mathématique
Citations
Opsomer, L. (2021). Short- and long-term adaptation of grip dynammics and arm kinematics to altered gravito-inertial environments. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/24910