OpenSim: Simulating musculoskeletal dynamics and neuromuscular control to study human and animal movement
Fig 9
OpenSim reveals the roles of reflexes and preparatory co-activation in preventing ankle injury.
DeMers and colleagues [20] created an OpenSim model to study risky landing scenarios (A), which included a detailed ankle joint to model both passive and active components, stretch-reflex controllers to actuate the muscles, and a contact model to estimate foot–floor reaction forces. They used the model to simulate a single-leg drop-landing onto an angled surface, which induced rapid ankle inversion. While preparatory co-activation of the invertor and evertor muscles (B) was able to prevent the ankle from inverting to angles that may cause injury (gray region), a reflex-only strategy (C) was not able to prevent injury in the scenario studied. Models and data are available on simtk.org [23]. Adapted from DeMers et al. [20].