Abstract des Autors

Static non-linear optimization was used to calculate the forces in muscles and the corresponding cost function values for a two-dimensional musculoskeletal system containing both 1-joint and 2-joint muscles, and an energetically equivalent system containing just 1-joint muscles. Agonistic muscular activity and co-contraction of pairs of antagonistic muscles were present in the general solutions of a system containing multi-joint muscles; such patterns of activity cannot be observed in a system containing just 1-joint muscles. If cost function values are considered to be a measure of some type of physiological effectiveness (as suggested implicitly or explicitly in the literature), than a system containing 2-joint muscles will tend to be more effective than a system containing 1-joint muscles, in situations where the directions of the resultant joint moments are equal. In situations where the direction of the joint moments are opposite, the system containing just 1-joint muscles tends to be more cost effective than the model containing 2-joint muscles. Verf.-Referat