Optimization of energy consumption
Scientists have found out that humans are evolutionarily programmed to be lazy
Unusual experiments with an exoskeleton have shown that our brain and anatomy are arranged as conveniently as possible for an extremely "lazy" and maximally energy-efficient gait, which explains why fitness and regular walks in the fresh air do little to help lose weight, according to an article published in the journal Current Biology (Selinger et al., Humans Can Continuously Optimize Energy Cost during Walking – VM).
"This discovery is quite logical in the context of the fact that we prefer to do everything with a minimum amount of effort – for example, we always go to the goal the shortest way, and sit instead of standing. We found the physiological background of typical human laziness, showing that even when performing such an unconscious action as walking, our nervous system controls energy consumption and constantly optimizes the manner of movement to reduce energy consumption," said Maxwell Donelan from Simon Fraser University (in a press release Wired for laziness – VM). in Vancouver (Canada).
Donelan and his colleagues came to this conclusion, trying to uncover the secret of how a person learned to walk upright and why people acquired the manner of walking that we all possess today. To do this, scientists recruited a group of several volunteers, whom they dressed in special exoskeletons, after which they invited them to walk on a treadmill.
These costumes were arranged in such a way that they did not help, but on the contrary, prevented people from moving as they do in a normal situation, and forced them to choose unorthodox walking manners. Such a technique, as the authors of the article hoped, was supposed to reveal the reasons for a person acquiring his current gait.
The experiment showed quite different from what scientists expected to see – it turned out that our brain continuously analyzes how the legs and arms move, and gradually changes the frequency of steps, the degree of swing of the legs and arms during each step, and other elements of the movement process in the direction of minimizing energy expenditure. According to scientists, the nervous system produces a similar "optimization" even when the gait is almost optimal and the energy consumption is only 5% higher than the ideal.
So far, scientists do not know the secret of how the brain manages to calculate energy consumption and make changes so quickly. As Donelan and his colleagues suggest, if they manage to find the "center of laziness" in our nervous system, then the principles of its operation can be copied and used to optimize costs in complex mechanical devices consisting of tens of thousands of elements, like our feet.
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14.09.2015