About this Neuroscience article
A comparison of cross-correlation and surface EMG techniques used to quantify motor unit synchronization in humans by John G Semmler; Michael A Nordstrom is a Neuroscience article available to read on EtoBox.
Two methods used to estimate the strength of motor unit (MU) synchronization in a muscle are the direct cross-correlation of MU discharge times, and averaging of the surface electromyogram (SEMG) with respect to discharge of a reference MU. Although indirect, the latter approach has the advantage that a global estimate of MU synchrony can be obtained quickly and easily. The two methods are generally regarded as providing equivalent information on the extent of MU synchronization in a muscle, but this proposition has not previously been tested quantitatively. In the present study, we used both the SEMG technique (189 MUs) and cross-correlation of MU discharge (498 MU pairs) to estimate MU synchrony in 28 first dorsal interosseus (FDI) muscles from 16 subjects. Despite considerable overlap in the identity of MUs used to quantify synchrony with each method, linear regression revealed no significant correlation between the estimates of MU synchronization in FDI muscles obtained with the two techniques (r 2 =0.04, n=28). This discrepancy was not due to insufficient sampling of the MU population with the cross-correlation method, although we found evidence for a non-uniform tendency for
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- Author
- John G Semmler; Michael A Nordstrom
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science; Elsevier ; Elsevier BV (ISSN 0165-0270)
- Published
- 1999
- Language
- EN
- Field
- Neuroscience (Life Sciences)