Improved motor unit number estimate when motor unit alternation is addressed.

Motor unit number estimation (MUNE) is important for determining motoneuron survival with age or in conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or spinal cord injury. The original incremental method and approaches that were introduced to minimize alternation (e.g.

Automatic identification and classification of muscle spasms in long-term EMG recordings.

Spinal cord injured (SCI) individuals may be afflicted by spasticity, a condition in which involuntary muscle spasms are common. EMG recordings can be analyzed to quantify this symptom of spasticity but manual identification and classification of spasms are time consuming. Here, an algorithm was created to find and classify spasm events automatically within 24-h recordings of EMG.

Automatic classification of motor unit potentials in surface EMG recorded from thenar muscles paralyzed by spinal cord injury.

Involuntary electromyographic (EMG) activity has only been analyzed in the paralyzed thenar muscles of spinal cord injured (SCI) subjects for several minutes. It is unknown if this motor unit activity is ongoing. Longer duration EMG recordings can investigate the biological significance of this activity.

Fatigue compensation during FES using surface EMG.

Muscle fatigue limits the effectiveness of FES when applied to regain functional movements in spinal cord injured (SCI) individuals. The stimulation intensity must be manually increased to provide more force output to compensate for the decreasing muscle force due to fatigue. An artificial neural network (ANN) system was designed to compensate for muscle fatigue during functional electrical stimulation (FES) by maintaining a constant joint angle.