Muscle synergy patterns as altered coordination strategies in individuals with chronic low back pain: a cross-sectional study

Hiroki SAITO; Hikaru Yokoyama; Atsushi Sasaki; Kimitaka Nakazawa

doi:10.1186/s12984-023-01190-z

journal article Open Access May 31, 2023

Muscle synergy patterns as altered coordination strategies in individuals with chronic low back pain: a cross-sectional study

Hiroki SAITO Hikaru Yokoyama Atsushi Sasaki

Kimitaka Nakazawa

Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation Vol. 20 No. 1 · Springer Science and Business Media LLC

View at Publisher Save 10.1186/s12984-023-01190-z

Abstract

Abstract
Background
Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a highly prevalent disease with poorly understood underlying mechanisms. In particular, altered trunk muscle coordination in response to specific trunk tasks remains largely unknown.

Methods
We investigated the muscle synergies during 11 trunk movement and stability tasks in 15 healthy individuals (8 females and 7 males, aged 21. 3 (20.1–22.8) ± 0.6 years) and in 15 CLBP participants (8 females and 7 males, aged 20. 9 (20.2–22.6) ± 0.7 years) by recording the surface electromyographic activities of 12 back and abdominal muscles (six muscles unilaterally). Non-negative matrix factorization was performed to extract the muscle synergies.

Results
We found six trunk muscle synergies and temporal patterns in both groups. The high similarity of the trunk synergies and temporal patterns in the groups suggests that both groups share the common feature of the trunk coordination strategy. We also found that trunk synergies related to the lumbar erector spinae showed lower variability in the CLBP group. This may reflect the impaired back muscles that reshape the trunk synergies in the fixed structure of CLBP. Furthermore, the higher variability of trunk synergies in the other muscle regions such as in the latissimus dorsi and oblique externus, which were activated in trunk stability tasks in the CLBP group, represented more individual motor strategies when the trunk tasks were highly demanding.

Conclusion
Our work provides the first demonstration that individual modular organization is fine-tuned while preserving the overall structures of trunk synergies and temporal patterns in the presence of persistent CLBP.

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Details

Published: May 31, 2023
Vol/Issue: 20(1)
License: View

Authors

H

Hiroki SAITO

Graduate school, Tokyo University of Science

Funding

the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Award: 22K11404

the Joint Project (A) from Tokyo University of Technology

the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)-MOONSHOT program Award: JPMJMS2012–2-2–2

Cite This Article

Hiroki SAITO, Hikaru Yokoyama, Atsushi Sasaki, et al. (2023). Muscle synergy patterns as altered coordination strategies in individuals with chronic low back pain: a cross-sectional study. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12984-023-01190-z

Muscle synergy patterns as altered coordination strategies in individuals with chronic low back pain: a cross-sectional study

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