Structure, Function, and Control of the Musculoskeletal Network

TL;DR

This paper models the human musculoskeletal system as a network to understand its structure, function, and neural control, revealing insights into injury susceptibility and motor control organization.

Contribution

It introduces a novel network-based formalism for the musculoskeletal system, linking anatomy, function, and neural control in a comprehensive model.

Findings

Muscle roles predict injury susceptibility.

Muscle clusters mirror motor cortex modules.

Network analysis informs therapeutic strategies.

Abstract

The human body is a complex organism whose gross mechanical properties are enabled by an interconnected musculoskeletal network controlled by the nervous system. The nature of musculoskeletal interconnection facilitates stability, voluntary movement, and robustness to injury. However, a fundamental understanding of this network and its control by neural systems has remained elusive. Here we utilize medical databases and mathematical modeling to reveal the organizational structure, predicted function, and neural control of the musculoskeletal system. We construct a whole-body musculoskeletal network in which single muscles connect to multiple bones via both origin and insertion points. We demonstrate that a muscle's role in this network predicts susceptibility of surrounding components to secondary injury. Finally, we illustrate that sets of muscles cluster into network communities that mimic the organization of motor cortex control modules. This novel formalism for describing interactions between the muscular and skeletal systems serves as a foundation to develop and test therapeutic responses to injury, inspiring future advances in clinical treatments.