Spi1 aggravates neuropathic pain by modulating Clec7a-mediated neuroinflammation and microglial phagocytosis.

Background: Microglia are essential in mediating responses to nerve injury, with neuroinflammation and engulfment of interneuron inhibitory synapses driving heightened neuronal excitability and pain hypersensitivity. Spi1 is the main regulator of microglial homeostasis in the central nervous system. However, its function in neuropathic pain remains unclear.

Neuroimaging and biological markers of different paretic hand outcomes after stroke.

Background: Hand dysfunction significantly affects independence after stroke, with outcomes varying across individuals. Exploring biomarkers associated with the paretic hand can improve the prognosis and guide personalized rehabilitation. However, whether biomarkers derived from resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) can effectively classify and predict different hand outcomes and their biological mechanisms remain unclear.

Therapeutic and orthotic effects of an adaptive functional electrical stimulation system on gait biomechanics in participants with stroke.

Background: In recent years, functional electrical stimulation (FES) has become a common intervention for stroke survivors to correct foot drop and improve gait biomechanics. While the orthotic effects of adaptive FES systems were well-documented, the center of pressure (COP) symmetry has been largely neglected. Furthermore, the long-term therapeutic effects of adaptive FES systems on gait biomechanics have received less attention.

The impact of neck pain and movement performance on the interarticular compressive force of the cervical spine: a cross-sectional study based on OpenSim.

Background: Excessive interarticular compressive force (CF) caused by poor posture increases the risk of neck pain. However, existing research on cervical CF is based on healthy individuals, and studies on those with neck pain are lacking. This study aims to address this gap by simultaneously collecting data from individuals with neck pain and asymptomatic individuals, simulating the CF during physiological movements such as flexion-extension, lateral bending, and rotation, to explore the impact of neck pain and movement performance on the interarticular CF.

Analysis of lumbar spine loading during walking in patients with chronic low back pain and healthy controls: An OpenSim-Based study.

Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most prevalent and disabling disease worldwide. However, the specific biomechanical changes due to LBP are still controversial. The purpose of this study was to estimate the lumbar and lower limb kinematics, lumbar moments and loads, muscle forces and activation during walking in healthy adults and LBP.

An Adaptive Hammerstein Model for FES-Induced Torque Prediction Based on Variable Forgetting Factor Recursive Least Squares Algorithm.

Modeling the muscle response to functional electrical stimulation (FES) is an important step during model-based FES control system design. The Hammerstein structure is widely used in simulating this nonlinear biomechanical response. However, a fixed relationship cannot cope well with the time-varying property of muscles and muscle fatigue.

Isometric Plantarflexion Moment Prediction Based on a Compartment-Specific HD-sEMG-Driven Musculoskeletal Model.

Objective: electromyogram (EMG)-driven musculoskeletal models have been widely used to investigate human movements while existing EMG-driven models commonly neglect regional heterogeneity in anatomy and activation within a skeletal muscle. To consider neuromuscular compartment anatomy and activation, a subject- and compartment-specific EMG-driven model was developed for isometric plantarflexion moment prediction.

Methods: the model was hill-type consisting of gastrocnemius medialis, gastrocnemius lateralis, and soleus around the ankle joint, and each muscle was discretised into four compartments.

Trajectory Deformation-Based Multi-Modal Adaptive Compliance Control for a Wearable Lower Limb Rehabilitation Robot.

Adaptive compliance control is critical for rehabilitation robots to cope with the varying rehabilitation needs and enhance training safety. This article presents a trajectory deformation-based multi-modal adaptive compliance control strategy (TD-MACCS) for a wearable lower limb rehabilitation robot (WLLRR), which includes a high-level trajectory planner and a low-level position controller. Dynamic motion primitives (DMPs) and a trajectory deformation algorithm (TDA) are integrated into the high-level trajectory planner, generating multi-joint synchronized desired trajectories through physical human-robot interaction (pHRI).

Modeling Ankle Torque and Stiffness Induced by Functional Electrical Stimulation.

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is commonly used for individuals with neuromuscular impairments to generate muscle contractions. Both joint torque and stiffness play important roles in maintaining stable posture and resisting external disturbance. However, most previous studies only focused on the modulation of joint torque using FES while ignoring the joint stiffness.

Iterative Adjustment of Stimulation Timing and Intensity During FES-Assisted Treadmill Walking for Patients After Stroke.

Functional electric stimulation (FES) is a common intervention to correct foot drop for patients after stroke. Due to the disturbances from internal time-varying muscle characteristics under electrical stimulation and external environmental uncertainties, most of the existing FES system used pre-set stimulation parameters and cannot achieve good gait performances during FES-assisted walking. Therefore, an adaptive FES control system, which used the iterative learning control to adjust the stimulation intensity based on kinematic data and a linear model to modulate the stimulation timing based on walking speed during FES-assisted treadmill walking, was designed and tested on ten patients with foot drop after stroke.

The Step Response in Isometric Grip Force Tracking: A Model to Characterize Aging- and Stroke-Induced Changes.

This paper aimed to construct a model to represent dynamic motor behavior to quantitatively investigate aging- and stroke-induced changes and, thus, to explore the underlying mechanisms of grip control. Grip force tracking tasks were conducted by stroke patients, age-matched healthy controls, and healthy young adults at 25%, 50%, and 75% maximum voluntary contractions (MVC), respectively. Sensorimotor control of the tracking task was modeled as the step response of a second-order system.

Finite element models of the human shoulder complex: a review of their clinical implications and modelling techniques.

The human shoulder is a complicated musculoskeletal structure and is a perfect compromise between mobility and stability. The objective of this paper is to provide a thorough review of previous finite element (FE) studies in biomechanics of the human shoulder complex. Those FE studies to investigate shoulder biomechanics have been reviewed according to the physiological and clinical problems addressed: glenohumeral joint stability, rotator cuff tears, joint capsular and labral defects and shoulder arthroplasty.