Clinical Neurophysiology
Volume 121, Issue 10 , Pages 1616-1623, October 2010

Decoding the neural drive to muscles from the surface electromyogram

  • Dario Farina

      Affiliations

    • Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI), Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Address: Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI), Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 7 D-3, DK-9220 Aalborg, Denmark. Tel.: +45 96358821; fax: +45 98154008.
    • ,
  • Aleš Holobar

      Affiliations

    • Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System, Department of Electronics, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
    • Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia
    • ,
  • Roberto Merletti

      Affiliations

    • Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System, Department of Electronics, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
    • ,
  • Roger M. Enoka

      Affiliations

    • Department of Integrative Physiology, University of Colorado at Boulder, CO, USA

Accepted 22 October 2009.

Abstract 

This brief review discusses the methods used to estimate the neural drive to muscles from the surface electromyogram (EMG). Surface EMG has been classically used to infer the neural activation of muscle by associating its amplitude with the number of action potentials discharged by a population of motor neurons. Although this approach is valuable in some applications, the amplitude of the surface EMG is only a crude indicator of the neural drive to muscle. More advanced methods are now available to estimate the neural drive to muscle from the surface EMG. These approaches identify the discharge times of a few motor units by decomposing the EMG signal to determine the relative changes in neural activation. This approach is reliable in several conditions and muscles for isometric contractions of moderate force, but is limited to the few superficial units that can be identified in the recordings.

Keywords: EMG, Amplitude cancellation, Motor unit, Decomposition, Spike train

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PII: S1388-2457(10)00345-7

doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2009.10.040

Clinical Neurophysiology
Volume 121, Issue 10 , Pages 1616-1623, October 2010

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