Total Metabolic Cost

[Jazmin Cruz]

I am currently going through the "Simulation-Based Design to Reduce Metabolic Cost" and at one point we set report_total_metabolics_only to true. Does this setting calculate the total energy consumption without any information about the muscles that are within your model?

For example, if you are working with a lower extremity model that only contains musculature in the lower extremity, would the "total metabolics" be a total of all musculature specifically defined within that model? As in, the total would not include energy consumed from the upper extremity.

I guess I am searching for a clear definition of what exactly is summed to calculate "total metabolics."

Thank you!

[Aaron Fox]

Hi Jazmin,

I'd suggest it's the total energy from all the metabolic probes included in the model. Given it's likely that the probes are only attached to the muscles then it would ignore the upper limb. When you run the tool with the energy from the muscles included it also gives you a 'total' column in the output. You could check your theory by summing all of the muscles and seeing if it equates to the total - and also compare this value to the 'total' reported when you set report_total_metabolics_only to true.

Aaron

[Thomas Uchida]

Please read the documentation: https://simtk.org/api_docs/opensim/api_ ... dd686dce8a