Kanazawa H1, Tanaka K1, Kawai M2, Kuniyoshi Y1
1The University of Tokyo, Department of Mechano-Informatics, Tokyo, Japan, 2Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan
Background: From early developmental phase, human infants exhibit complex and various types of spontaneous whole-body movements. Recent animal studies have shown that these spontaneous movements play an important role in early sensorimotor development. In addition, human studies have actively characterized infantile spontaneous movements in terms of limb trajectory and its coordination to deepen our understanding of how the spontaneous movements contribute to the sensorimotor development.While such importance of neonatal/infantile movements has been emphasized, the detailed whole-body movement has not been analyzed because of lack of technical methodology.
Purpose: In this study, we proposed motion analysis technique to capture and quantify the whole body spontaneous movements in human neonates and infants.
Methods: The proposed method consists of following three steps.
Results: We performed full-body motion capture of 12 neonates (within 30 days after birth) and 10 infants (3 months after birth) during spontaneous movements without external stimulation. To quantify the characteristic of neonatal and infantile whole body movements, the network analysis for correlation matrix among all joint movements was conducted. Finally, the joint network in infants group showed higher modality,which quantifies the degree of subdivided groups in each network, than in neonate group.
Conclusion(s): Suggested technique enable to capture the detailed whole body joint motion and to reveal the characteristic difference between neonates and infants in terms of network analysis.
Implications: Suggested technique would be useful for a deeper understanding of early human development of spontaneous movements.
Keywords: Infant, motion capture, spontaneous movements
Funding acknowledgements:
This research is supported by JSPS Research Fellowships for Young Scientists.
Purpose: In this study, we proposed motion analysis technique to capture and quantify the whole body spontaneous movements in human neonates and infants.
Methods: The proposed method consists of following three steps.
- recording three-dimensional positions of total 54 markers using 8-12 infrared cameras at 100 fps during neonatal / infantile spontaneous movements.
- estimating the center of total 14 joint (neck, shoulder, elbow, hand, trunk, hip, knee and ankle) and the size of each body parts (upper arm, forearm, trunk, pelvis, upper leg, lower leg) using 6 markers for each joint as post-hoc analysis.
- inverse kinematics for total 26 degree-of-freedom using skeletal model with markers.
Results: We performed full-body motion capture of 12 neonates (within 30 days after birth) and 10 infants (3 months after birth) during spontaneous movements without external stimulation. To quantify the characteristic of neonatal and infantile whole body movements, the network analysis for correlation matrix among all joint movements was conducted. Finally, the joint network in infants group showed higher modality,which quantifies the degree of subdivided groups in each network, than in neonate group.
Conclusion(s): Suggested technique enable to capture the detailed whole body joint motion and to reveal the characteristic difference between neonates and infants in terms of network analysis.
Implications: Suggested technique would be useful for a deeper understanding of early human development of spontaneous movements.
Keywords: Infant, motion capture, spontaneous movements
Funding acknowledgements:
This research is supported by JSPS Research Fellowships for Young Scientists.
Topic: Paediatrics; Human movement analysis
Ethics approval required: Yes
Institution: The university of Tokyo
Ethics committee: Ethics Committee of The university of Tokyo
Ethics number: E1425
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
