Non-invasive estimation of muscle fibre size from high-density electromyography
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Because of the biophysical relation between muscle fibre diameter and the propagation velocity of action potentials along the muscle fibres, motor unit conduction velocity could be a non-invasive index of muscle fibre size in humans. However, the relation between motor unit conduction velocity and fibre size has been only assessed indirectly in animal models and in human patients with invasive intramuscular EMG recordings, or it has been mathematically derived from computer simulations. By combining advanced non-invasive techniques to record motor unit activity in vivo, i.e. high-density surface EMG, with the gold standard technique for muscle tissue sampling, i.e. muscle biopsy, here we investigated the relation between the conduction velocity of populations of motor units identified from the biceps brachii muscle, and muscle fibre diameter. We demonstrate the possibility of predicting muscle fibre diameter (R2 = 0.66) and cross-sectional area (R2 = 0.65) from conduction velocity estimates with low systematic bias (∼2% and ∼4% respectively) and a relatively low margin of individual error (∼8% and ∼16%, respectively). The proposed neuromuscular interface opens new perspectives in the use of high-density EMG as a non-invasive tool to estimate muscle fibre size without the need of surgical biopsy sampling. The non-invasive nature of high-density surface EMG for the assessment of muscle fibre size may be useful in studies monitoring child development, ageing, space and exercise physiology, although the applicability and validity of the proposed methodology need to be more directly assessed in these specific populations by future studies.
Date Issued
2023-05-15
Date Acceptance
2023-03-13
Citation
The Journal of Physiology, 2023, 601 (10), pp.1831-11850
ISSN
0022-3751
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
1831
End Page
11850
Journal / Book Title
The Journal of Physiology
Volume
601
Issue
10
Copyright Statement
© 2023 The Authors. The Journal of Physiology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Physiological Society.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/JP284170
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2023-03-16