A practice of caution: spontaneous action potentials or artifactual spikes? J Neuroeng Rehabil 2015 Jan 13;12(1):5
Date
01/15/2015Pubmed ID
25582549Pubmed Central ID
PMC4326455DOI
10.1186/1743-0003-12-5Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84924123922 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 2 CitationsAbstract
BACKGROUND: High density surface electromyogram (EMG) techniques with electrode arrays have been used to record spontaneous muscle activity, which is important, both for supporting the diagnosis of neuromuscular diseases and for laboratory based neurophysiological investigations. This short report addresses a practical issue we have experienced during recording of spontaneous muscle activity using electrode arrays from subjects with major neuromuscular disorders.
FINDINGS: We show that recording artifacts can appear similar to spontaneous action potential spikes. Moreover, a causal filter may induce asymmetric distortions of an artifact and thus confuse it with a real action potential spike. As a consequence, for a single channel surface EMG recording, it might be difficult to judge whether a voltage transient is a real action potential or an artifact. Further investigation of the signal distributions among other channels of the array can be used to reach a more confident judgment.
CONCLUSIONS: During examination of spontaneous muscle activity using electrode arrays, caution is required for differentiation of physiological signals from artifactual spikes, which is important for accurate extraction of diagnostic or investigatory information.
Author List
Jahanmiri-Nezhad F, Li X, Rymer WZ, Zhou PAuthor
Xiaoyan Li PhD Assistant Professor in the Neurology department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Action PotentialsAdult
Artifacts
Electrodes
Electromyography
Female
Humans
Male
Muscle Fibers, Skeletal
Muscle, Skeletal
Neuromuscular Diseases
Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
Young Adult