Development of an Advanced Dynamic Simulation Framework of the Spine and Its Clinical Application

Musculoskeletal modelling has been a widely-used and efficient method for biomechanical analysis of human movement. However, previous studies mostly define the spine as a single segment, without taking all the individual vertebrae into account. Meanwhile, the complex muscle and ligament groups around spine, as well as the complex characteristics of the intervertebral contacts, have rarely been taken into consideration. Additionally, the effect of spinal instrumentations for post-operative predictive simulation has not been investigated. This project aims to build a detailed, fully articulated and musculoskeletal model of the spine, to gain deeper insights into the spine kinetics, kinematics, muscle activities and loading in healthy and pathologic conditions. The basic workflow includes: 1) Developing fully -articulated musculoskeletal models, with detailed joint definition implemented as bushing element using the OpenSim platform. 2) Incorporating the passive structure and intervertebral contacts into the physiology-based muscle force optimization approach. Current commonly used optimization methods, like static optimization and computed muscle control, will be performed to allow comparing different optimization techniques. The validation will be evaluated by comparing the simulation results to in vivo data, by comparing the muscle activations to normalized EMG signals. 3) Focusing on patients with adult spinal deformity, the spinal simulations will work as a tool to predict the effect of inclusion of surgical instrumentation.

Publication year:2020

Accessibility:Open