A generic detailed rigid-body lumbar spine model

The objective of this work is to present a musculo-skeletal model of the lumbar spine, which can be shared and lends itself to investigation in many locations by different researchers. This has the potential for greater reproducibility and subsequent improvement of its quality from the combined effort of different research groups. The model is defined in a text-based, declarative, object-oriented language in the AnyBody Modelling System software. Text-based models will facilitate sharing of the models between different research groups. The necessary data for the model has been taken from the literature. The work resulted in a detailed lumbar spine model with seven rigid segments with 18 degrees-of-freedom and 154 muscles. The model is able to produce a maximum extension moment of 238 Nm around L5/S1. Moreover, a comparison was made with in vivo intradiscal pressure measurements of the L4–5 disc available from the literature. The model is based on inverse dynamics, where the redundancy problem is solved using optimization in order to compute the individual muscle forces and joint reactions. With the presented model it is possible to investigate a range of research questions, because the model is relatively easy to share and modify due to the use of a well-defined and self-contained scripting language. Validation is though still necessary for specific cases.