Coordination of lower limb movement utilizing the agonist-antagonist myoneural interface

Abstract

The agonist-antagonist myoneural interface is a novel surgical construct that shows promise as a method of providing persons with amputation proprioceptive sensation of movement and force. This thesis aims to quantify the volitional coordination capabilities of the agonist- antagonist myoneural interface for applications related to control of active prostheses. In the first section, bilateral rhythmic coordination of ankle and subtalar joint movements is investigated in a control group of physically intact human subjects to characterize stereotypical kinematics of volitional lower limb movement. Subsequently, neuromusculoskeletal modeling techniques are developed to directly map estimated neural excitations from agonist-antagonist myoneural interface musculature to intended subtalar inversion and eversion kinematics. In a case study, the developed neuromusculoskeletal modeling techniques are applied to optimize a dynamic subtalar model for use by a unilateral subject with amputation possessing the agonist-antagonist myoneural interface. The subject's subsequent performance in bilateral rhythmic coordination utilizing the model and her own intact subtalar demonstrates the capacity of the agonist-antagonist myoneural interface to coordinate with intact anatomy in a biomimetic manner.