Integrated biosignal data analysis for performance assessment

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Biological signals provide a window into essential functions in the human body. Human movement involves transmission of control signals from the brain to activate skeletal muscles, which in turn, contract and generate force and movement. The activation signal within the muscle is detected and recorded as the electromyogram (EMG). Given the connection between activation and force, an extensive body of work on predicting force from recorded EMG has been generated. We have developed EMG-force models based on single site recordings, and more recently on multi-site high-density EMG recordings, in which muscle activation is detected over a large surface area of the muscle under study. These models, however, are still limited by an incomplete picture of the muscle activation. As well, we are unable to directly measure output forces for individual muscles (as a surrogate, joint moment is measured, where the moment is controlled by several muscles acting across the joint). Reasonable force estimation has been achieved only under highly restricted, usually isometric (constant position), experimental conditions. This is in part because muscle activation changes with postural changes, which alter the biomechanics of the system.