Full-Body Musculoskeletal Model for Muscle-Driven Simulation of Human Gait

Musculoskeletal models provide a non-invasive means to study human movement and predict the effects of interventions on gait. Our goal was to create an open-source 3-D musculoskeletal model with high-fidelity representations of the lower limb musculature of healthy young individuals that can be used to generate accurate simulations of gait.

Our model includes bony geometry for the full body, 37 degrees of freedom to define joint kinematics, Hill-type models of 80 muscle-tendon units actuating the lower limbs, and 17 ideal torque actuators driving the upper body. The model's musculotendon parameters are derived from previous anatomical measurements of 21 cadaver specimens and magnetic resonance images of 24 young healthy subjects. We tested the model by evaluating its computational time and accuracy of simulations of healthy walking and running.