It has been shown that during arm movement, humans selectively change the endpoint stiffness of their arm to compensate for
the instability in an unstable environment. When the direction of the instability is rotated with respect to the direction
of movement, it was found that humans modify the antisymmetric component of their endpoint stiffness. The antisymmetric component
of stiffness arises due to reflex responses suggesting that the subjects may have tuned their reflex responses as part of
the feedforward adaptive control. The goal of this study was to examine whether the CNS modulates the gain of the reflex response
for selective tuning of endpoint impedance. Subjects performed reaching movements in three unstable force fields produced
by a robotic manipulandum, each field differing only in the rotational component. After subjects had learned to compensate
for the field, allowing them to make unperturbed movements to the target, the endpoint stiffness of the arm was estimated
in the middle of the movements. At the same time electromyographic activity (EMG) of six arm muscles was recorded. Analysis
of the EMG revealed differences across force fields in the reflex gain of these muscles consistent with stiffness changes.
This study suggests that the CNS modulates the reflex gain as part of the adaptive feedforward command in which the endpoint
impedance is selectively tuned to overcome environmental instability.
Keywords Mechanical impedance - limb stiffness - internal model - stretch reflex - impedance control - co-contraction - electromyography