Coordination Dynamics of the Human Locomotor and Respiratory Systems

日常活动几乎总是包括同时做两件事，比如走路、聊天或开车，找个地方去。需要持续和精确调整的两个非常基本的活动是运动和呼吸。在大多数动物中，对呼吸的机械限制会导致与运动的强烈耦合或同步。例如，蜥蜴只能交替奔跑和呼吸。在人类的运动中，呼吸和运动的协调方式有更大的灵活性。然而，参与呼吸的许多肌肉也控制着躯干的稳定性，而躯干在运动过程中扮演着自己的稳定角色。相互联系四通八达，至少可以说协调问题是复杂的。在国家科学基金会理查德·范·埃默里克博士的支持下，约瑟夫·哈米尔博士和帕蒂·弗里德森博士将与博士后威廉·麦克德莫特博士一起研究人们如何在各种情况下协调呼吸和运动。这项研究的一个重点是评估人们如何适应不同运动任务中的协调。这些任务操纵行走的困难程度，并检查对运动和呼吸之间协调性的影响。对于这项研究来说，一个非常重要的问题是这种协调如何影响运动的稳定性。这项研究的更广泛影响是在终身体力活动的学习策略、老年人预防跌倒、事故康复以及患有运动和呼吸障碍的人的康复方面。

Daily activity almost always includes doing two things at once, such as walking and talking or driving and finding a place to go. Two very basic activities that need continuous and precise tuning are locomotion and breathing. In most animals, mechanical constraints on breathing lead to strong coupling or synchronization with locomotion. Lizards, for example can only run and breathe in alternation. In human locomotion, there is more flexibility in how breathing and locomotion are coordinated. However, many of the muscles involved in breathing also control the stability of the torso and the torso plays its own role in stability during locomotion. Interconnections run in all directions and the problem of coordination is complex to say the least.With NSF support Dr. Richard Van Emmerik, Dr. Joseph Hamill and Dr. Patty Freedson, together with postdoctoral fellow Dr. William McDermott, will investigate how people coordinate respiration and locomotion under a variety of circumstances. A focus of the research is to assess how people adapt coordination in different movement tasks. The tasks manipulate the degree of difficulty for walking and examine the impact on coordination between locomotion and respiration. A very important question for this research is how this coordination affects the stability of locomotion. Broader impacts of the research are in the areas of learning strategies for physical activity across the lifespan, prevention of falls in older individuals, and rehabilitation from accidents and for people afflicted with movement and respiratory disorders.