Muscle Synergy Analysis of Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain during Functional Tasks.

IF 5.2 2区 医学 Q2 ENGINEERING, BIOMEDICAL
Xin Zhou, Guohao Lin, Yiyang Chen, Xiong Zhao, Ben Cao, Jintian Chen, Qingguang Zhu, Lingjun Kong, Min Fang
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Abstract

Chronic low back pain (LBP) significantly impairs daily functional movements. Persistent pain may trigger alterations in neuromuscular control, particularly muscle coordination. However, muscle synergy patterns during specific functional tasks in patients with LBP remain unclear. We recruited 36 participants, including 18 patients with chronic LBP (the LBP group) and 18 healthy participants (the control group). Surface electromyography signals were recorded from ten trunk and lower-limb muscles during three common functional tasks: sit-to-stand, trunk flexion, and lifting. Muscle synergies were extracted via non-negative matrix factorization. Cosine similarity analysis and statistical parametric mapping were applied to evaluate spatial (motor modules) and temporal (motor primitives) differences between groups. Compared to the control group, participants with chronic LBP exhibited a reduced number of muscle synergies during sit-to-stand, indicating adaptive reorganization of motor modules. Although spatial muscle synergy structures were largely conserved between groups, significant temporal differences emerged in trunk flexion, particularly during eccentric phases. Patients with LBP showed prolonged and temporally shifted activation of spinal extensors and hip-pelvic stabilizers, suggesting compensatory mechanisms to mitigate spinal loading. Muscle contribution patterns during lifting tasks also differed significantly between groups, despite similar temporal activation. In conclusion, patients with chronic LBP demonstrate distinct muscle synergy adaptations characterized by reduced complexity, altered timing during eccentric trunk movements, and modified lower-limb recruitment strategies. Trunk flexion emerged as a particularly sensitive task for identifying neuromuscular deficits in LBP. These findings provide targeted insights for clinical rehabilitation, emphasizing eccentric trunk control, motor control timing, and lower-limb muscle retraining.

慢性腰痛患者功能性任务时肌肉协同作用分析。
慢性腰痛(LBP)严重损害日常功能运动。持续疼痛可引起神经肌肉控制的改变,尤其是肌肉协调。然而,在腰痛患者的特定功能任务中,肌肉协同模式仍不清楚。我们招募了36名参与者,包括18名慢性下腰痛患者(下腰痛组)和18名健康参与者(对照组)。在三种常见的功能任务:坐立、躯干屈曲和举起时,记录10块躯干和下肢肌肉的表面肌电图信号。通过非负矩阵分解提取肌肉协同效应。余弦相似性分析和统计参数映射用于评估组间的空间(运动模块)和时间(运动原语)差异。与对照组相比,慢性腰痛患者在坐立过程中肌肉协同作用的数量减少,表明运动模块的适应性重组。尽管空间肌肉协同结构在各组之间很大程度上是保守的,但躯干屈曲出现了显著的时间差异,特别是在偏心期。腰痛患者表现出延长和时间转移的脊髓伸肌和髋-骨盆稳定器激活,提示代偿机制减轻脊柱负荷。在举重任务中,尽管时间激活相似,但两组之间的肌肉贡献模式也有显著差异。总之,慢性腰痛患者表现出明显的肌肉协同适应,其特征是复杂性降低,躯干偏心运动时的时间改变,下肢补充策略改变。躯干屈曲是识别腰痛神经肌肉缺陷的一项特别敏感的任务。这些发现为临床康复提供了有针对性的见解,强调偏心躯干控制,运动控制时机和下肢肌肉再训练。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
8.60
自引率
8.20%
发文量
479
审稿时长
6-12 weeks
期刊介绍: Rehabilitative and neural aspects of biomedical engineering, including functional electrical stimulation, acoustic dynamics, human performance measurement and analysis, nerve stimulation, electromyography, motor control and stimulation; and hardware and software applications for rehabilitation engineering and assistive devices.
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