Sensing form - finger gaiting as key to tactile object exploration - a data glove analysis of a prototypical daily task
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(2020) 17:133
RESEARCH
Open Access
Sensing form - finger gaiting as key to tactile object exploration - a data glove analysis of a prototypical daily task Werner Krammer1,2* , John H. Missimer3, Simon Habegger1, Manuela Pastore-Wapp1, Roland Wiest1 and Bruno J. Weder1*
Abstract Background: Motor hand skill and associated dexterity is important for meeting the challenges of daily activity and an important resource post-stroke. In this context, the present study investigated the finger movements of righthanded subjects during tactile manipulation of a cuboid, a prototypical task underlying tactile exploration. During one motor act, the thumb and fingers of one hand surround the cuboid in a continuous and regular manner. While the object is moved by the guiding thumb, the opposed supporting fingers are replaced once they reach their joint limits by free fingers, a mechanism termed finger gaiting. Methods: For both hands of 22 subjects, we acquired the time series of consecutive manipulations of a cuboid at a frequency of 1 Hz, using a digital data glove consisting of 29 sensors. Using principle component analysis, we decomposed the short action into motor patterns related to successive manipulations of the cuboid. The components purport to represent changing grasp configurations involving the stabilizing fingers and guiding thumb. The temporal features of the components permits testing whether the distinct configurations occur at the frequency of 1 Hz, i.e. within the time window of 1 s, and, thus, taxonomic classification of the manipulation as finger gaiting. Results: The fraction of variance described by the principal components indicated that three components described the salient features of the single motor acts for each hand. Striking in the finger patterns was the prominent and varying roles of the MCP and PIP joints of the fingers, and the CMC joint of the thumb. An important aspect of the three components was their representation of distinct finger configurations within the same motor act. Principal component and graph theory analysis confirmed modular, functionally synchronous action of the involved joints. The computation of finger trajectories in one subject illustrated the workspace of the task, which differed for the right and left hands. (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] 1 Support Center for Advanced Neuroimaging (SCAN), Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, Bern, Switzerland Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are incl
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