Using corticomuscular and intermuscular coherence to assess cortical contribution to ankle plantar flexor activity during gait

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

The present study used coherence and directionality analyses to explore whether the motor cortex contributes to plantar flexor muscle activity during the stance phase and push-off phase during gait. Subjects walked on a treadmill, while EEG over the leg motorcortex area and EMG from the medial gastrocnemius and soleus muscles was recorded. Corticomuscular and intermuscular coherence were calculated from pair-wise recordings. Significant EEG-EMG and EMG-EMG coherence in the beta and gamma frequency bands was found throughout the stance phase with the largest coherence towards push-off. Analysis of directionality revealed that EEG activity preceded EMG activity throughout the stance phase until the time of push-off. These findings suggest that the motor cortex contributes to ankle plantar flexor muscle activity and forward propulsion during gait.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Motor Behavior
Volume51
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)668-680
Number of pages13
ISSN0022-2895
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

    Research areas

  • Faculty of Science - Coherence, Gait, EMG, Cortex, Spinal motor neurons, Directionality

Number of downloads are based on statistics from Google Scholar and www.ku.dk


No data available

ID: 212123310