ASU Scholarship Showcase

How the human brain controls hand movements to carry out different tasks is still debated. The concept of synergy has been proposed to indicate functional modules that may simplify the control of hand postures by simultaneously recruiting sets of muscles and joints. However, whether and to what extent synergic hand postures are encoded as such at a cortical level remains unknown. Here, we combined kinematic, electromyography, and brain activity measures obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging while subjects performed a variety of movements towards virtual objects. Hand postural information, encoded through kinematic synergies, were represented in cortical areas devoted to hand motor control and successfully discriminated individual grasping movements, significantly outperforming alternative somatotopic or muscle-based models. Importantly, hand postural synergies were predicted by neural activation patterns within primary motor cortex. These findings support a novel cortical organization for hand movement control and open potential applications for brain-computer interfaces and neuroprostheses.

Studies on anticipatory planning of object manipulation showed initial task failure (i.e., object roll) when visual object shape cues are incongruent with other visual cues, such as weight distribution/density (e.g., symmetrically shaped object with an asymmetrical density). This suggests that shape cues override density cues. However, these studies typically only measured forces, with digit placement constrained. Recent evidence suggests that when digit placement is unconstrained, subjects modulate digit forces and placement. Thus, unconstrained digit placement might be modulated on initial trials (since it is an explicit process), but not forces (since it is an implicit process). We tested whether shape and density cues would differentially influence anticipatory planning of digit placement and forces during initial trials of a two-digit object manipulation task. Furthermore, we tested whether shape cues would override density cues when cues are incongruent. Subjects grasped and lifted an object with the aim of preventing roll. In Experiment 1, the object was symmetrically shaped, but with asymmetrical density (incongruent cues). In Experiment 2, the object was asymmetrical in shape and density (congruent cues). In Experiment 3, the object was asymmetrically shaped, but with symmetrical density (incongruent cues). Results showed differential modulation of digit placement and forces (modulation of load force but not placement), but only when shape and density cues were congruent. When shape and density cues were incongruent, we found collinear digit placement and symmetrical force sharing. This suggests that congruent and incongruent shape and density cues differentially influence anticipatory planning of digit forces and placement. Furthermore, shape cues do not always override density cues. A continuum of visual cues, such as those alluding to shape and density, need to be integrated.

The human hand has so many degrees of freedom that it may seem impossible to control. A potential solution to this problem is “synergy control” which combines dimensionality reduction with great flexibility. With applicability to a wide range of tasks, this has become a very popular concept. In this review, we describe the evolution of the modern concept using studies of kinematic and force synergies in human hand control, neurophysiology of cortical and spinal neurons, and electromyographic (EMG) activity of hand muscles. We go beyond the often purely descriptive usage of synergy by reviewing the organization of the underlying neuronal circuitry in order to propose mechanistic explanations for various observed synergy phenomena. Finally, we propose a theoretical framework to reconcile important and still debated concepts such as the definitions of “fixed” vs. “flexible” synergies and mechanisms underlying the combination of synergies for hand control.

Pure coconut oil, lanolin, and acetaminophen were vaporized at rates of 1–50 mg/min, using a porous network exhibiting a temperature gradient from 5000 to 5500 K/mm, without incurring noticeable chemical changes due to combustion, oxidation, or other thermally-induced chemical structural changes. The newly coined term “ereptiospiration” is used here to describe this combination of thermal transpiration at high temperature gradients since the process can force the creation of thermal aerosols by rapid heating in a localized zone. Experimental data were generated for these materials using two different supports for metering the materials to the battery powered coil: namely, a stainless steel fiber bundle and a 3-D printed steel cartridge. Heating coconut oil, lanolin, or acetaminophen in a beaker to lower temperatures than those achieved at the surface of the coil showed noticeable and rapid degradation in the samples, while visual and olfactory observations for ereptiospiration showed no noticeable degradation in lanolin and coconut oil while HPLC chromatograms along with visual observation confirm that within the limit of detection, acetaminophen remains chemically unaltered by ereptiospiration.