Non-invasive detection of the single motor unit action potential by averaging the spatial potential distribution triggered on a spatially filtered motor unit action potential

For research as well as diagnostic applications the non-invasive detection of the activity of single motor units is of interest. The most direct information is expected to be found in monopolarly recorded data. But when an array of surface electrodes is used for the monopolar recordings of the potential distribution on the skin, in most cases an additional invasive needle electrode is utilized to detect the exact points in time when a certain motor unit is firing. With this supplementary information, an averaging of the monopolar EMG tracings can be performed. In this paper, a completely non-invasive methodology is presented which replaces the invasive needle by a spatial filtering procedure. The EMG signals from the m. biceps brachii are recorded monopolarly with an electrode array. Afterwards, a spatial filtering procedure, called normal double differentiating filter, is applied to the data. The EMG signals obtained are investigated by means of an amplitude threshold to distinguish the activity of different motor units. The point of the maximum amplitude of the selected peaks then is used as trigger point to average the monopolar EMG data. The time courses of the motor unit action potential signals found after applying the described procedure show similar shapes, while two different components are to be identified: corresponding to the spread of the excitation, one is referring to stationary, the other to travelling events. These results justify the possibility to replace the needle electrode to obtain a trigger event in the future by the non-invasive spatial filtering procedure. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.