Behavioural energetics in human locomotion: how energy use influences how we move

Nearly a century of research has shown that humans, and other animals, tend to move in ways that minimize energy use. A growing body of evidence suggests that energetic cost is not only an outcome of our movement, but also plays a central role in continuously shaping it. This has led to an emerging research area, at the nexus between biomechanics and neuroscience, termed behavioural energetics, which is focused on understanding the mechanisms of energy optimization and how this shapes our coordination and behaviour. In this Review, we first summarize the existing evidence for and against our preferred locomotor behaviours coinciding with energy optima. Although evidence of our preference for energetically optimal gaits has existed for decades, new research is revealing its relevance across a surprising array of dynamic locomotor tasks and complex environments. We next discuss evidence that we adapt our gait toward energy optima over short timescales and in novel environments, which we view as a more stringent test that energy expenditure is optimized in real-time. This necessitates that we sense energy use, or proxies for it, on similar timescales. We therefore next provide an overview of candidate sensory mechanisms of energy expenditure. Finally, we discuss how behavioural energetics can be applied to novel wearable assistive technologies and rehabilitation paradigms, and conclude the Review by outlining what we see as the most important future challenges and opportunities in behavioural energetics.