Sensors, Vol. 20, Pages 3209: Muscle Synergies in Parkinson ’s Disease

Sensors, Vol. 20, Pages 3209: Muscle Synergies in Parkinson’s Disease Sensors doi: 10.3390/s20113209 Authors: Ilaria Mileti Alessandro Zampogna Alessandro Santuz Francesco Asci Zaccaria Del Prete Adamantios Arampatzis Eduardo Palermo Antonio Suppa Over the last two decades, experimental studies in humans and other vertebrates have increasingly used muscle synergy analysis as a computational tool to examine the physiological basis of motor control. The theoretical background of muscle synergies is based on the potential ability of the motor system to coordinate muscles groups as a single unit, thus reducing high-dimensional data to low-dimensional elements. Muscle synergy analysis may represent a new framework to examine the pathophysiological basis of specific motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease (PD), including balance and gait disorders that are often unresponsive to treatment. The precise mechanisms contributing to these motor symptoms in PD remain largely unknown. A better understanding of the pathophysiology of balance and gait disorders in PD is necessary to develop new therapeutic strategies. This narrative review discusses muscle synergies in the evaluation of motor symptoms in PD. We first discuss the theoretical background and computational methods for muscle synergy extraction from physiological data. We then critically examine studies assessing muscle synergies in PD during different motor tasks including balance, gait and up...
Source: Sensors - Category: Biotechnology Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research