Neuromechanics

Neuromechanics is an interdisciplinary field that combines biomechanics and neuroscience to understand how the nervous system interacts with the skeletal and muscular systems to enable animals to move. Across species and scales, body form muscles, and the environment influence how animals move; conversely, these interactions between the nervous system, body, and world define how, whether, and when neural signals might influence motor function. In vertebrates and invertebrates, neuromechanics has been used to understand the complex, non-linear interactions underlying the control of movement.

Muscle synergies or modules, are a common neuromechanical framework for understanding how the central nervous recruits sets of muscles to generate movements. Instead of controlling each muscle individually, muscle synergies posit that muscles are recruited in groups to generate specific movement of the body.[3. In addition to participating in reflexes, neuromechanical process may also be shaped through motor adaptation and learning.