From Single Motor Unit Activity to Multiple Grip Forces: Mini-review of Multi-digit Grasping

This paper is a mini review of kinetic and kinematic evidence on the control of the hand with emphasis on grasping. It is not meant to be an exhaustive review, rather it summarizes current research examining the mechanisms through which specific patterns of coordination are elicited and observed during reach to grasp movements and static grasping. These coordination patterns include the spatial and temporal covariation of the rotation at multiple joints during reach to grasp movements. A basic coordination between grip forces produced by multiple digits also occurs during whole hand grasping such that normal forces tend to be produced in a synchronous fashion across pairs of digits. Finally, we address current research that suggests that motor unit synchrony across hand muscles and muscle compartments might be one of the neural mechanisms underlying the control of grasping.