Background: Biomechanical muscle stiffness has been linked to musculoskeletal disorders. Assessing changes in muscle stiffness following DN may help elucidate a physiologic mechanism of DN. This study characterizes the effects of dry needling (DN) to the infraspinatus, erector spinae, and gastrocnemius muscles on biomechanical muscle stiffness.
Method: 60 healthy participants were randomized into infraspinatus, erector spinae, or gastrocnemius groups. One session of DN was applied to the muscle in standardized location. Stiffness was assessed using a MyotonPRO at baseline, immediately post DN, and 24 h later. The presence of a localized twitch response (LTR) during DN was used to subgroup participants.
Results: A statistically significant decrease in stiffness was observed in the gastrocnemius, the LTR gastrocnemius, and the LTR erector spinae group immediately following DN treatment. However, stiffness increased after 24 h. No significant change was found in the infraspinatus group.
Conclusions: DN may cause an immediate, yet transitory change in local muscle stiffness. It is unknown whether these effects are present in a symptomatic population or related to improvements in clinical outcomes. Future studies are necessary to determine if a decrease in biomechanical stiffness is related to improvement in symptomatic individuals.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbmt.2021.04.014 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Impact of body-height increase on gastrocnemius muscle stiffness in children with cerebral palsy: A one-year prospective cohort study.
Am J Phys Med Rehabil
January 2025
Department of Physical Therapy, Akita University Graduate School of Health Sciences, 1-1-1 Hondo, Akita 010-8543, Japan.
Objective: To investigate whether the impacts of height increase on gastrocnemius muscle (GM) stiffness are greater in children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) than in those with typical development (TD).
Design: This one-year cohort study enrolled children (CP, 23; TD, 23) who underwent two measurements conducted at entry and after one year. Lateral and medial GM-strain ratios representing muscle stiffness were obtained using elastography.
Growing meat on autoclaved vegetables with biomimetic stiffness and micro-patterns.
Nat Commun
January 2025
School of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua Medicine; Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Cultured meat needs edible bio-scaffolds that provide not only a growth milieu for muscle and adipose cells, but also biomimetic stiffness and tissue-sculpting topography. Current meat-engineering technologies struggle to achieve scalable cell production, efficient cell differentiation, and tissue maturation in one single culture system. Here we propose an autoclaving strategy to transform common vegetables into muscle- and adipose-engineering scaffolds, without undergoing conventional plant decellularization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPredicting prosthetic gait and the effects of induced stiff-knee gait.
PLoS One
January 2025
Laboratory for Biomechanics and Biomaterials, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, DIAKOVERE Annastift, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
Prosthetic gait differs considerably from the unimpaired gait. Studying alterations in the gait patterns could help to understand different adaptation mechanisms adopted by these populations. This study investigated the effects of induced stiff-knee gait (SKG) on prosthetic and healthy gait patterns and the capabilities of predictive simulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiscovery of Titin and Its Role in Heart Function and Disease.
Circ Res
January 2025
Department of Integrative Pathophysiology, Medical Faculty Mannheim, DZHK Partnersite Mannheim-Heidelberg, University of Heidelberg, Germany (S.L.).
This review examines the giant elastic protein titin and its critical roles in heart function, both in health and disease, as discovered since its identification nearly 50 years ago. Encoded by the TTN (titin gene), titin has emerged as a major disease locus for cardiac disorders. Functionally, titin acts as a third myofilament type, connecting sarcomeric Z-disks and M-bands, and regulating myocardial passive stiffness and stretch sensing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCardiac fibroblast BAG3 regulates TGFBR2 signaling and fibrosis in dilated cardiomyopathy.
J Clin Invest
January 2025
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA.
Loss of Bcl2-associated athanogene 3 (BAG3) is associated with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). BAG3 regulates sarcomere protein turnover in cardiomyocytes; however, the function of BAG3 in other cardiac cell types is understudied. In this study, we used an isogenic pair of BAG3-knockout and wild-type human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) to interrogate the role of BAG3 in hiPSC-derived cardiac fibroblasts (CFs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!