Estimation of motor commands for extremity movements by means of pulse density demodulation processing for surface electrode electromyograms

As part of an ongoing study on modeling of neuromotor control mechanism for computer simulation of movements of extremities, computer programmed pulse density demodulation processing for surface electrode electromyograms is developed. Utilizing this method, the analog patterns of the motor commands are reconstructed from electromyograms of lower leg muscles in running action. By estimating the on-off patterns of the higher level motor commands from the analog patterns, it is demonstrated that the differences in timing and amplitude of the motor commands between antagonist muscles can be analyzed in detail.