Co-activation of upper limb muscles during reaching in post-stroke subjects: An analysis of the contralesional and ipsilesional limbs

The purpose of this study was to analyze the change in antagonist co-activation ratio of upper-limb muscle pairs, during the reaching movement, of both ipsilesional and contralesional limbs of post-stroke subjects. Nine healthy and nine post-stroke subjects were instructed to reach and grasp a target, placed in the sagittal and scapular planes of movement. Surface EMG was recorded from postural control and movement related muscles. Reaching movement was divided in two sub-phases, according to proximal postural control versus movement control demands, during which antagonist co-activation ratios were calculated for the muscle pairs LD/PM, PD/AD, TRIlat/BB and TRIlat/BR. Post-stroke’s ipsilesional limb presented lower co-activation in muscles with an important role in postural control (LD/PM), comparing to the healthy subjects during the first sub-phase, when the movement was performed in the sagittal plane (p < 0.05). Conversely, the post-stroke’s contralesional limb showed in general an increased co-activation ratio in muscles related to movement control, comparing to the healthy subjects. Our findings demonstrate that, in post-stroke subjects, the reaching movement performed with the ipsilesional upper limb seems to show co-activation impairments in muscle pairs associated to postural control, whereas the contralesional upper limb seems to have signs of impairment of muscle pairs related to movement.