Neck stiffness and range of motion for young males and females

Mingyue Liu; Ryan D Quarrington; Baptiste Sandoz; William S P Robertson; Claire F Jones

doi:10.1016/j.jbiomech.2024.112090

Neck stiffness and range of motion for young males and females

J Biomech. 2024 Apr 9:168:112090. doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2024.112090. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Mingyue Liu¹, Ryan D Quarrington², Baptiste Sandoz³, William S P Robertson⁴, Claire F Jones⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia; Adelaide Spinal Research Group, Centre for Orthopaedic & Trauma Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Adelaide, SA, Australia. Electronic address: mingyue.liu@adelaide.edu.au.
² Adelaide Spinal Research Group, Centre for Orthopaedic & Trauma Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Adelaide, SA, Australia. Electronic address: ryan.quarrington@adelaide.edu.au.
³ Arts et Métiers Institute of Technology, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, IBHGC - Institut de Biomécanique Humaine Georges Charpak, HESAM Université, Paris, France. Electronic address: baptiste.sandoz@ensam.eu.
⁴ School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia. Electronic address: will.robertson@adelaide.edu.au.
⁵ School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia; Adelaide Spinal Research Group, Centre for Orthopaedic & Trauma Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Adelaide, SA, Australia; Department of Orthopaedics & Trauma, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, SA, Australia. Electronic address: claire.jones@adelaide.edu.au.

PMID: 38677031
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2024.112090

Abstract

Well characterised mechanical response of the normal head-neck complex during passive motion is important to inform and verify physical surrogate and computational models of the human neck, and to inform normal baseline for clinical assessments. For 10 male and 10 female participants aged 20 to 29, the range of motion (ROM) of the neck about three anatomical axes was evaluated in active-seated, passive-lying and active-lying configurations, and the neck stiffness was evaluated in passive-lying. Electromyographic signals from the agonist muscles, normalised to maximum voluntary contractions, were used to provide feedback during passive motions. The effect of sex and configuration on ROM, and the effect of sex on linear estimates of stiffness in three regions of the moment-angle curve, were assessed with linear mixed models and generalised linear models. There were no differences in male and female ROM across all motion directions and configurations. Flexion and axial rotation ROM were configuration dependent. The passive-lying moment-angle relationship was typically non-linear, with higher stiffness (slope) closer to end of ROM. When normalising the passive moment-angle curve to active lying ROM, passive stiffness was sex dependent only for lateral bending region 1 and 2. Aggregate moment-angle corridors were similar for males and females in flexion and extension, but exhibited a higher degree of variation in applied moment for males in lateral bending and axial rotation. These data provide the passive response of the neck to low rate bending and axial rotation angular displacement, which may be useful for computational and surrogate modelling of the human neck.

Keywords: Asymptomatic human participant; Cervical spine; Posture; Range of motion; Stiffness.