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Brief communication: Dynamic plantar pressure distribution during locomotion in Japanese macaques ( Macaca fuscata )
Author(s) -
Hirasaki Eishi,
Higurashi Yasuo,
Kumakura Hiroo
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/ajpa.21240
Subject(s) - quadrupedalism , bipedalism , gait , forefoot , plantar pressure , heel , context (archaeology) , anatomy , physical medicine and rehabilitation , gait cycle , foot (prosody) , ground reaction force , biology , medicine , physics , kinematics , surgery , system of measurement , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , classical mechanics , astronomy , complication
Abstract To better place the form and motion of the human foot in an evolutionary context, understanding how foot motions change when quadrupeds walk bipedally can be informative. For this purpose, we compared the pressures beneath the foot during bipedal and quadrupedal walking in Japanese macaques ( Macaca fuscata ). The pressure at nine plantar regions was recorded using a pressure mat (120 Hz), while the animals walked on a level walkway at their preferred speeds. The results revealed substantial differences in foot use between the two modes of locomotion, and some features observed during bipedal walking resembled human gait, such as the medial transfer of the center of pressure (COP), abrupt declines in forefoot pressures, and the increased pressure beneath the hallux, all occurring during the late‐stance phase. In particular, the medial transfer of the COP, which is also observed in bonobos (Vereecke et al.: Am J Phys Anthropol 120 (2003) 373–383), was due to a biomechanical requirement for a hind limb dominant gait, such as bipedal walking. Features shared by bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion that were quite different from human locomotion were also observed: the heel never contacted the ground, a foot longitudinal arch was absent, the hallux was widely abducted, and the functional axis was on the third digit, not the second. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.