Abstract
Many activities of daily living involve multi-digit, voluntary rotational manipulations of grasped objects. Yet, only a few studies have focused on coordination of individual fingertip forces during such tasks. The objective of this study was to investigate individual digit contributions to a three-digit task in which an object was rotationally manipulated against gravity. Center of mass was varied through the use of containers shaped like a water bottle, pint glass, and cocktail glass, from which subjects poured fluid carefully into a nearby receptacle. The center of mass of the grasped object changed continuously as fluid was poured out. Self-selected digit placement and contributions of fingertip forces to rotational manipulation were dependent upon anticipated center of mass location associated with container shape. The thumb resisted the rotation of the top-heavy, cocktail glass container until 79 % of the pouring phase had elapsed, but actively assisted the rotation of the less challenging containers. More directly opposing the thumb, the index finger contributed more to grasp stability. The middle finger contributed more to rotation of the container for pouring. It was found that the thumb, index, and middle fingers acted in unison temporally, but contributed independently to the grip forces and stabilizing moments throughout the dynamic, rotational manipulation task.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. Michael De Gregorio, Wesley Tong, and Jasmine Brown for assistance with data collection, and Dr. Ruben Ponce Wong and Randall Hellman for technical feedback. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under a Graduate Research Fellowship (to Manis) and Grant No. 0954254/1461547 (to Santos). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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Manis, R.P., Santos, V.J. Independent digit contributions to rotational manipulation in a three-digit pouring task requiring dynamic stability. Exp Brain Res 233, 2195–2204 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4289-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4289-6