Decoding Upper Limb Movements

The upper limbs are essential for performing everyday tasks that require a wide range of motion and precise coordination. Planning and timing are crucial to achieve coordinated movement. Sensory information about the target and current body state is critical, as is the integration of prior experience represented by prelearned inverse dynamics that generate the associated muscle activity. We propose a generative model that uses a recurrent neural network to predict upper limb muscle activity during various simple and complex everyday movements. By identifying movement primitives within the signal, our model enables the decomposition of these movements into a fundamental set, facilitating the reconstruction of muscle activity patterns. Our approach has implications for the fundamental understanding of movement control and the rehabilitation of neuromuscular disorders with myoelectric prosthetics and functional electrical stimulation.