Wakeling Lab

Some great posters by the lab at the @TheSIAMNews PNW Conference on parallel computing (Javier Almonacid), 3D dynamic muscle modelling (Cassidy Tam), and modelling effects of cerebral palsy (@rnkonno)!

And @pratt_jaylene explored the Entropic Half-Lifes of simulated and real EMG intensities (3/3)

Ryan modelled changes to the extracellular matrix in cerebral palsy (2/n)

7/n 3. Muscle mass is likely NOT negligible, especially in larger muscles (⭐️like in humans) and at submax activations (⭐️like most contractions during daily life)

5/n 3. ⬆️ initial pennation angle resulted in ⬇️ reductions in mass-specific work i.e. more pennate = less penalty of larger size and mass 4. We found comparable patterns of tissue accelerations in 3D model as in rat muscle in situ

4/n We found that… 1. ⬆️ size and mass resulted in ⬆️ energy stored in aponeurosis during contraction 2. As with previous 1D muscle sims, ⬆️ size and mass (scale) resulted in ⬇️ mass-specific work W* in 3D muscle sims. This was more pronounced with submax activation (squares)

3/n In this study we used a 3D continuum model of muscle that accounts for tissue mass to explore the effects of muscle size and mass on mass-specific work, tissue energy distribution, and muscle shape change in 3D during cyclic contractions

5/n These force changes with transverse compression were associated with changes in how internal energy was distributed throughout the muscle tissue

4/n We found force of parallel muscle decreases with transverse compression. For pennate muscle, force ⬇️ or ⬆️ depending on pennation, load direction and muscle length.

3/n But it wasn’t clear why this occurs at the tissue level and how it’s affected by muscle 3D architecture. We simulated transverse compression of 3D muscle with diff. pennations

2/n Previous experimental studies have shown that transverse compression decreases muscle force in the longitudinal direction (image: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…)