Muscle Synergies Heavily Influence the Neural Control of Arm Endpoint Stiffness and Energy Consumption
Fig 2
We use a 6-muscle planar arm model to quantify the effects of synergies on endpoint stiffness and energy consumption within the workspace. For any posture in the workspace of the arm, neural commands to the muscles can set the active endpoint stiffness of the limb—visualized as an ellipse of a particular size, shape (i.e., eccentricity), and orientation.