How can humans manipulate objects and perform skillful movements?
We routinely perform tasks with cutlery, kitchen utensils, hand tools, etc, which are mechanically unstable. This means that small perturbations arising from motor command variability or environmental disturbances may lead to unpredictable, inconsistent and unsuccessful movements. How can we perform such tasks despite of motor-output variability and important delays of the neural feedback? To address this question we investigate arm movements in virtual mechanical environments produced by a haptic interface. This powerful robot exerts computer-controlled forces on the hand during movement. We analyze the muscle activity, the trajectory, the force at the hand and the stiffness of the limb during movement. We have shown that the central nervous system can control stiffness magnitude and geometry at the hand independently of the force to compensate for mechanical instability in the acquisition of a new motor skill. This implies that the CNS can coordinate the muscle activity so as to cont
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