Department of Mathematics, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837.
Department of Mathematics, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Mar 14;120(11):e2213302120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2213302120. Epub 2023 Mar 10.
Spinal injuries in many vertebrates can result in partial or complete loss of locomotor ability. While mammals often experience permanent loss, some nonmammals, such as lampreys, can regain swimming function, though the exact mechanism is not well understood. One hypothesis is that amplified proprioceptive (body-sensing) feedback can allow an injured lamprey to regain functional swimming even if the descending signal is lost. This study employs a multiscale, integrative, computational model of an anguilliform swimmer fully coupled to a viscous, incompressible fluid and examines the effects of amplified feedback on swimming behavior. This represents a model that analyzes spinal injury recovery by combining a closed-loop neuromechanical model with sensory feedback coupled to a full Navier-Stokes model. Our results show that in some cases, feedback amplification below a spinal lesion is sufficient to partially or entirely restore effective swimming behavior.
许多脊椎动物的脊柱损伤会导致运动能力部分或完全丧失。虽然哺乳动物通常会永久性丧失运动能力，但一些非哺乳动物，如七鳃鳗，可以恢复游泳功能，尽管确切的机制尚不清楚。一种假设是，增强的本体感觉（身体感知）反馈可以使受伤的七鳃鳗即使失去下行信号也能恢复功能游泳。本研究采用了一种多尺度、综合的、计算模型，该模型将鳗形游泳者与粘性不可压缩流体完全耦合，并研究了增强反馈对游泳行为的影响。这是一种通过将闭环神经力学模型与与全纳维-斯托克斯模型耦合的感觉反馈相结合来分析脊柱损伤恢复的模型。我们的结果表明，在某些情况下，脊柱损伤以下的反馈放大足以部分或完全恢复有效的游泳行为。
