A high-density surface EMG framework for the study of motor neurons controlling the intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the hand

Tanzarella S, Muceli S, Del Vecchio A, Casolo A, Farina D (2019)

Publication Type: Conference contribution

Publication year: 2019

Journal

Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society

Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Pages Range: 2307-2310

Conference Proceedings Title: Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS

Event location: Berlin DE

ISBN: 9781538613115

DOI: 10.1109/EMBC.2019.8856825

Abstract

We propose a framework based on high-density surface electromyography (HD-sEMG) to identify the neural drive to muscles controlling the human hand. High-density (320 channels) sEMG signals were recorded concurrently from intrinsic (the four dorsal interossei and thenar) and extrinsic (forearm) hand muscles and then decomposed into the constituent trains of motor unit (MU) action potentials. The participants performed pinch tasks with simultaneous activation of the thumb and one of the other fingers with sinusoidal force variations. The common drive among MUs across different muscles was extracted via principal component analysis (PCA) of the smoothed MU discharge rates. The first principal component of the smoothed discharge rates of all identified motor neurons explained 48.7 ± 15.4% of the total variance across all pinching tasks, indicating a common neural input shared by different muscles of the forearm and the hand.. When considering only the MUs extracted from extrinsic and intrinsic muscles, the percent of variance explained was 48.3 ± 15.3% and 57.1 ± 15.5%, respectively. This framework is conceived to use motor neuron activity for a proportional myoelectric control and rehabilitation technologies. A wearable adaptation of the framework is proposed for future perspectives.

Authors with CRIS profile

Alessandro Del Vecchio

Involved external institutions

Imperial College London / The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine GB United Kingdom (GB)

How to cite

APA:

Tanzarella, S., Muceli, S., Del Vecchio, A., Casolo, A., & Farina, D. (2019). A high-density surface EMG framework for the study of motor neurons controlling the intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the hand. In Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS (pp. 2307-2310). Berlin, DE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc..

MLA:

Tanzarella, Simone, et al. "A high-density surface EMG framework for the study of motor neurons controlling the intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the hand." Proceedings of the 41st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2019, Berlin Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2019. 2307-2310.

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