Abstract
In the clinical environment, invasive EMG recordings are currently used to acquire information about either the shape of the motor unit action potential (MUAP) waveform [3–9] or the motor unit discharge pattern [4–7]. Despite the use of selective bipolar needle electrodes, records mostly comprise MUAPs of different motor units, and, therefore, the application of a sorting procedure which separates the MUAPs of the single motor units for analysis is indicated. In the case of analyzing one single unit at a time, simple methods (like amplitude window) which can be performed on both a hardware and a software level are satisfactory, since only the extraction of a very prominent MUAP from the recorded signal is required. If, however, a simultaneous observation of several units is required for studying temporal relationships between them [5], a decomposition of the EMG signal into its constituent MUAP trains is necessary. Such a decomposition, however, represents a very complex pattern recognition task, even in the simple case of EMG recordings taken during stable weak isometric contractions; therefore, it can only be accomplished by computer software, and there are reports about efficient programs from several authors [1, 8, 10, 11]. As part of our investigations concerning motor-unit behavior in central disorders (see R. Dengler and W. Wolf, this volume) we have also developed such a decomposition program, which will be outlined by this report.
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© 1987 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Wolf, W., Dengler, R. (1987). Automatic Sorting and Analysis of Multiunit EMG Recordings. In: Struppler, A., Weindl, A. (eds) Clinical Aspects of Sensory Motor Integration. Advances in Applied Neurological Sciences, vol 4. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-71540-2_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-71540-2_9
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