Muscles force patterns prediction and joint reactions determination during 3D spine movements by means of optimal control theory

Modeling the spine behavior plays a key role in understanding mechanisms leading to spinal disorders and injuries. The goal of this article is to develop a new model to obtain 3D spine movement patterns. High degrees of freedom of the system, a great many of muscles involved in the spine movements and its unstable intrinsic behavior make the control problem more difficult. New theories in computational motor control suggest optimal control as a useful tool for modeling Central Nervous System (CNS) to provide appropriate control signals while it computes the neural interactions with biological sensors. Therefore, CNS is modeled as an optimal controller. Our simulations illustrate the movement behavior and muscles force patterns which may be used to relate to the risk of injury in both joints and muscles.