Project: EMG driven model

[Jason Wheeler]

Has anyone implemented an EMG-driven simulation in OpenSim? Would it be doable to alter the optimization for CMC for certain muscles to conform to an EMG signal?

[Sam Hamner]

I know the Thor Besier, who is the director of the Human Performance Lab where we got the mocap data, worked on a project that used an "EMG-driven musculoskeletal model to estimate muscle forces." I think there is a great explanation of their method, and state "that including the muscle’s twitch response in the EMG-to-activation model can give better predictions of muscle force."

Here is the citation. Let me know if you have trouble getting the paper:

Lloyd DG, Besier TF. An EMG-driven musculoskeletal model to estimate muscle forces and knee joint moments in vivo. J Biomech. 2003 Jun;36(6):765-76.

[Matt DeMers]

As I recall, the method described in this paper required a pretty extensive set of calibration protocols on a dynamometer. Would we have the resources to do similar measurements?

[Jason Wheeler]

Thanks for the comments. We have been working with Thor on this idea. I was curious if it would be implementable in OpenSim. I think we have come up with a kind of hybrid approach that we may be able to try thanks to some feedback we got.