Questions about OpenSim, Beginner

[Breanne Woods]

I'm looking at downloading OpenSim for a personal project of mine, but I have a few questions to ensure it's suitable for my needs. I'm looking at experimenting with a human diagram (preferably a head, neck, and shoulders one) to see if I can create a functional model for a condition called Noxacusis, a very rare condition where ear pain is induced by low level sound. The most common theory is the tensor tympani muscle, responsible for dampening sound, becomes overactive and starts creating a trigger point in the tensor veli palatini muscle, thereby creating pain from sound.

I wanted to know if I can replicate certain conditions, such as TMJ disorder, and if the program would create a domino reaction in the diagram that's similar to how TMJ disorder affects the body. I also wanted to ask if I can alter any part of the diagram to see what happens, such as changing something that makes it foreign to a normal functioning body, and if the diagram would respond accordingly, accounting for that change. Additionally, I wanted to know if this program is able to show muscle tension?

Please let me know if these questions would be better suited for somewhere else. Thank you for your time.

[Carmichael Ong]

There are a few places to start to look at examples to see if some of OpenSim's functionality may help your specific research project:
- The documentation wiki, and in particular, the Examples and Tutorials page and the Overview of OpenSim Workflows page.
- Look at various project pages made by other researchers on SimTK.org.
- Search through the literature to see if there are any similar studies using OpenSim and check out their methods sections.