Independent digit control: failure to partition perceived heaviness of weights lifted by digits of the human hand.

1. A weight-matching task was used to investigate the ability to estimate heaviness when weight lifting was isolated to the extrinsic flexor muscles (or portions thereof) that act on the digits of the hand. 2. Subjects matched a reference weight (200 g) lifted by a digit on the right with a variable weight lifted by the left thumb; a concurrent weight was simultaneously lifted by a digit on the right (reference) side. The reference and concurrent weights were lifted either by the same muscle (digital portions of flexor digitorum profundus), or anatomically separate but functionally related muscles (flexor digitorum profundus and flexor pollicis longus). Anaesthesia of the radial nerve and/or posturing of the hand was used to eliminate any small forces generated by co-contraction of the extensor muscles of the digits. 3. When the concurrent weight was equal to or greater than the reference weight, the perceived heaviness of the reference weight increased significantly from control trials (in which no concurrent weight was lifted). Although perceived heaviness of the reference weight increased progressively as the concurrent weight increased, reproducibility (expressed as the coefficient of variation) did not deteriorate when a weight was lifted concurrently. These findings were qualitatively similar when the reference and concurrent weights were lifted by two digital portions of flexor digitorum profundus or when the weights were lifted by flexion of the thumb and index finger. Also, anaesthesia of the digits which lifted the reference and concurrent weights did not alter the changes in perceived heaviness. 4. Perceived heaviness of the reference weight lifted by flexor digitorum profundus did not change when subjects lifted the concurrent weight with a remote muscle group (ankle dorsiflexors). 5. This study shows that signals of heaviness are systematically overestimated whenever more than one portion of the extrinsic muscles which flex the different digits are simultaneously active. Given that estimates of heaviness are biased by the central motor command, one explanation is that when the total motor drive increases, the central nervous system is unable to partition precisely the destination of motor commands to functionally related 'muscles'.