IEEE transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering : a publication of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
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IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng · Sep 2001
Effect of initial joint position on nerve-cuff recordings of muscle afferents in rabbits.
The objective was to characterize nerve-cuff recordings of muscle afferents to joint rotation over a large part of the physiological joint range. This information is needed to develop control strategies for functional electrical stimulation (FES) systems using muscle afferent signals for sensory feedback. Five acute rabbit experiments were performed. ⋯ The steady-state sensitivity of both nerve responses increased with increasing joint flexion, whereas the dynamic sensitivity increased initially but then decreased. The results indicate that recordings of the muscle afferents may provide reliable information over only a part of the physiological joint range. Despite this limitation, muscle afferent activity may be useful for motion feedback if the movement to be controlled is within a narrow joint range such as postural sway.