Descending Corticospinal Control of Intersegmental Dynamics

To make an accurate movement, the CNS has to overcome the inherent complexities of the multijoint limb. For example, interaction torques arise when motion of individual arm segments propagates to adjacent segments causing their movement without any muscle contractions. Since these passive joint torques significantly add to the overall torques generated by active muscular contractions, they must be taken into account during planning or execution of goal-directed movements. We investigated the role of the corticospinal tract in compensating for the interaction torques during arm movements in humans. Twelve subjects reached to visual targets with their arm supported by a robotic exoskeleton. Reaching to one target was accompanied by interaction torques that assisted the movement, while reaching to the other target was accompanied by interaction torques that resisted the movement. Corticospinal excitability was assessed at different times during movement using single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the upper-arm region of M1 (primary motor cortex). We found that TMS responses in shoulder monoarticular and elbow-shoulder biarticular muscles changed together with the interaction torques during movements in which the interaction torques were resistive. In contrast, TMS responses did not correlate with assistive interaction torques or with co-contraction. This suggests that the descending motor command includes compensation for passive limb dynamics. Furthermore, our results suggest that compensation for interaction torques involves the biarticular muscles, which span both shoulder and elbow joints and are in a biomechanically advantageous position to provide such compensation.