Human postural control during standing posture with a muscle-tendon actuator

Abstract

The way humans control the balance in the upright posture is not yet fully understood and complications due to deficiency in the postural control are of relevant concern. In order to achieve an early diagnosis on disorders affecting human postural control, the theoretical modelling coupled with computer simulation emerges as an option used by researchers. Looking for a model for a greater understanding of human postural control system, this paper presents a new computational model dedicated to the study of human upright posture, with the presentation of a model of muscle-tendon actuator. The way in which the subsystems of human control, such as the dynamic muscle, neural control, visual, vestibular and somatosensory contribute to the stable posture was also focused. This model simulate the responses of fluctuations in the centre of mass and centre of pressure and offers the possibility of measuring neural activation, decomposition of reactive torque and participation of each set of muscle groups to maintain posture. It reproduces, in a model of feedback, the existing cross-correlation between experimentally observed and the neural signal and the centre of pressure.