Abstract

When we observe humans walk in various conditions, we may see the immense adaptability of them to those conditions. For instance when carrying a load on the head, the use of the body as a system of multi-joint bodies is adapted, to make the gait as efficient and smooth as possible. The same applies to wearing different kinds of shoes and (after amputation) a leg prosthesis. The way these adaptations take place and the effectiveness of them is one of the subjects of study in the field of neuromechanics. The complexity of the human body in motion is perplexing. Not so much the threedimensional trajectories of the movements (for hat we need 12 variables for each body segment: the positions and orientations and their first derivatives as functions of time), but the way they are controlled. Since we are unable to directly look at the neural processes (neuro-imaging only shows us where the activity is, not how it works), the only solution is to look at the process of adaptation itself in terms of function. But before we do that, we need to first look at the properties of the components of the human body, involved in movements and their control. Einleitung