Relationship between the rise-time of single-fibre action potentials and radial distance in human muscle fibres

Differentiation between single fiber potentials from one muscle fiber or contaminated by other fibers using discriminating function

OBJECTIVES

The aim was to improve the identification of potentials recorded using single fiber electromyography (SFEMG) contaminated by potentials from other muscle fibers, which might affect measured jitter value, by defining more selective criteria of single fiber potential (SFP) discrimination. We were looking for solutions suitable for automatization.

METHODS

Standard parameters characterizing SFP and their combinations were analyzed to define an analytical discriminating function able to verify if potentials recorded using SFEMG are due to single fiber or due to two (or more) fibers.

RESULTS

The discriminating function is based on combination of standard SFP parameters. The procedure was tested on a set of simulated i.e., known data and on samples of clinical data. The tests on simulated data confirmed assumed properties of discriminating function. Preliminary results of pilot studies using patient data suggest its ability for differentiation between potentials of one fiber and contaminated ones. The procedure is suitable for automatization.

CONCLUSION

Results suggest that proposed discriminating function when supplementing standard criteria would help to promote SFP recordings and enable to improve relevancy of jitter measurements and of jitter value norms.

Shape variability of potentials recorded by a single-fiber electrode and its effect on jitter estimation

Technical problems accompanying the recording of fiber pair potentials introduce certain instability in the peak-to-peak interval (rise-time, RT) of these potentials. This study aims (1) to measure the variability observed in RT of a large number of sets of consecutive potentials recorded by a single-fiber (SF) electrode and (2) to evaluate the effect of such variability on the jitter estimation. Using a SF electrode, 140 sets of consecutive potentials were recorded from the m. tibialis anterior of four healthy subjects. For each set, the rise-time variability (RTV) was calculated as the standard deviation of the RTs of the discharges within that set. The effect of RTV in the estimation of jitter from simulated fiber pairs with controlled values of neuromuscular jitter was analyzed. The RTVs of sets visually assessed as produced by a "single-fiber" were always less than 20 μs, whereas those of "composite" sets were normally higher than 20 μs. We found that the RTV always increased the estimated jitter of fiber pairs. Such increment depended on the amount of neuromuscular jitter. The RTV provides an estimate of the possible error introduced in jitter assessment. This could be important for the diagnosis of mild clinical manifestations of myasthenia gravis, myopathies, and Duchenne dystrophies.

The peak-to-peak ratio of single-fibre potentials is little influenced by changes in the electrode positions close to the muscle fibre

In a series of previous works we studied the ratio between the amplitudes of the second and first phases (the peak-to-peak ratio) of single fibre action potential (SFAPs) using the Dimitrov-Dimitrova SFAP convolutional model as a reference. From experimental potentials extracted from both healthy and diseased muscles, we determined typical peak-to-peak ratio (PPR) values and ranges for both normal and pathological conditions. In addition, we investigated the changes observed in the PPR of consecutive potentials recorded at different fibre-to-electrode distances. However, our results were not conclusive due to insufficient data. The objective of the present work was to obtain a more concrete description of the relation between PPR and radial distance. To this end, we recorded 135 sets of consecutive SFAPs from the m. tibialis anterior of four normal subjects. The needle was intentionally moved whilst recording each SFAP set. We found that PPR was largely independent of small changes in electrode position when the electrode was close to the fibre and sufficiently far from the neuromuscular and/or fibre-tendon junctions. In the discussion, we provide evidence that this result is in agreement with the generation of extracellular potentials considering the spatial extension of the intracellular action potential (IAP) along the fibre.