Colloquium Neuromechanics: Dr. Koen Lemaire, FGB, VU

The way humans and other animals locomote is often hypothesized to be optimal with respect to metabolic energy consumption. A major factor that influences this metabolic energy consumption is thought to be (internal) negative mechanical work done due to collisions with the ground and/or energy dissipation in non-rigid tissues. The first project he will go into concerns the timing of the ‘head-bob’ with respect to the footfall in pigeon locomotion. It is shown that the head-bobbing timing in walking pigeons is similar to the timing that minimizes the negative mechanical work in a simple model of the pigeon. The second project concerns an attempt to quantify the amount of energy dissipated in ‘soft tissues’ during human walking. Here, the focus will be on the theoretical and practical validity of the method to estimate soft tissue work. It is shown that the experimental quantification of ‘soft tissue work’ is in line with independent measurements, but that that it is impossible to know the true amount of energy dissipated due to incomplete information of the system.