The aim of this study was to compare the presurgical and postsurgical electromyographic (EMG) activities of the lips in patients with skeletal Class III treated with combined orthognathic surgery and contrast these data with those obtained from a control group with skeletal Class I. Ten patients with skeletal Class III ...

Background: Histopathological alterations and a reduced number of capillaries have been observed in the palate muscles of snorers with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). These changes may create a substrate for decreased microcirculation, impaired aerobic metabolism and muscle dysfunction and contribute to upper airway obstruction during sleep. Objectives: The aim ...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether high force or stress response occurs in rapid palatal expansion (RPE) on the skull base would affect the function of trigeminal nerve and its branches by measuring trigeminal somatosensory-evoked potential (TSEP). STUDY DESIGN: Twenty-four male New Zealand white rabbits were ...

ABSTRACT: An 8-year-old boy was seen by his primary care pediatrician with a chief complaint of "intermittent rapid vibrations of the epiglottis" that began several weeks prior. Intraoral examination revealed rapid, symmetrical bilateral contractions of the soft palate muscles (velum), accompanied by clicking sounds audible to physician (objective tinnitus) and ...

Recently, a new regulatory circuitry has been identified in which RNAs can crosstalk with each other by competing for shared microRNAs. Such competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) regulate the distribution of miRNA molecules on their targets and thereby impose an additional level of post-transcriptional regulation. Here we identify a muscle-specific long ...

Skeletal muscle development, repair and function are dependent on highly coordinated expression of many genes. RNA-binding proteins are crucial determinants of gene expression in the health and disease of various tissues, including skeletal muscle. A variety of RNA-binding proteins are associated with a transcript during its life cycle and define ...

Studies converge in indicating a substantial similarity of the rules and mechanisms underlying execution, observation and imagery of actions, along with a large overlapping of their neural substrates. Recent transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies have demonstrated a muscle-specific facilitation of the observer's motor system for force requirement and type of ...

Palatal myoclonus is a rare condition in which there are rhythmic jerky movements of the soft palate and sometimes of the other muscles innervated by the brainstem A particularly annoying symptom is a rhythmic clicking sound in the ear due to the opening and closing of the Eustachian tube. Orofacial ...

The mandible is a complex osteological structure composed of distinct units integrated into a single bone around the director axis of the mandibular nerve. In this study of the mandibular development, we use a method that synthesizes the contributions of each sub-unit, using the mandibular canal as reference system. This ...

This study examined discharge rate modulation at respiratory (0-0.5 Hz) and beta (16-32 Hz) frequencies in trapezius motor units active during voluntary contractions and during periods of instructed rest under conditions of low and high psychosocial stress. In separate sessions, single motor unit activity was recorded from the trapezius muscle ...

Coherence between electromyographic (EMG) signals has been used to identify correlated neural inputs to motor units (MUs) innervating different muscles. Simulations using a motor-unit model (Fuglevand et al. 1992) were performed to determine the ability of coherence between two multi-unit EMGs (mEMG) to detect correlated MU activity and the range ...

single motor unit recordings of the genioglossus (GG) muscle indicate that GG motor units have a variety of discharge patterns, including units that have higher discharge rates during inspiration (inspiratory phasic and inspiratory tonic), or expiration (expiratory phasic and expiratory tonic), or do not modify their rate with respiration (tonic). ...

The motor unit number index (MUNIX) is a method for assessment of number and size (MUSIX) of motor units (MUs) using the compound muscle action potential (CMAP) and surface electromyographic interference pattern (SIP). This method was used to study the hypothenar muscle in 34 healthy subjects to define normal range, ...

Single motor unit (SMU) analysis provides a means to examine the motor control of a muscle. SMUs in the genioglossus show considerable complexity, with several different firing patterns. Two of the primary stimuli that contribute to genioglossal activation are carbon dioxide (CO(2)) and negative pressure, which act through chemoreceptor and ...

The aim of this study was to investigate motor unit (MU) characteristics of the biceps brachii during sinusoidal contractions in chronic stroke patients using high-density surface electromyography. Ten sinusoidal elbow flexion and extension movements were performed both passively and actively by 18 stroke patients and 20 healthy subjects. Motor unit ...

One potential expression of altered motoneuron excitability following a hemispheric stroke is the spontaneous unit firing (SUF) of motor units at rest. The elements contributing to this altered excitability could be spinal descending pathways, spinal interneuronal networks, afferent feedback, or intrinsic motoneuron properties. Our purpose was to examine the characteristics ...

In voluntary breaths, driven through the motor cortex, the pattern of activation in human inspiratory intercostal muscles is unknown. We measured single motor unit behaviour in the first, third, and fifth parasternal intercostal muscles in 5 subjects for 'quiet' and matched 'voluntary' inspirations. In voluntary breaths, the average onset, peak ...

Intraspinal microstimulation (ISMS) employs electrical stimulation of the ventral grey matter to reactivate paralyzed skeletal muscle. This work evaluated the transformations in the quadriceps muscle that occurred following complete transection and chronic stimulation with ISMS or a standard nerve cuff (NCS). Stimulation was applied for 30 days, 4 h/day. Both ...

Motor unit number estimation techniques in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients are technically challenging and time-consuming. The Motor Unit Number Index (MUNIX) is a novel technique based on surface-EMG recordings and requires only 3-5 minutes per muscle. The objective was to explore the feasibility of longitudinal MUNIX measurements in ALS ...

To study motor unit number estimation (MUNE) in acutely transected peripheral nerves, and to retest our previous observation which had revealed a discordance between the loss of compound muscle action potential (CMAP) size and decrease in MUNE during Wallerian degeneration. In eight patients with nine transected median or ulnar nerves, ...

This paper shows how to use a DC motor and its PID controller, to behave analogously to a muscle. A model of the muscle that has been learned by a NNARX (Neural Network Auto Regressive eXogenous) structure is used. The PID parameters are tuned by an MLP Network with a ...

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of ageing on the rate of force generation of motor units, and the mechanical efficiency of contraction produced by a doublet discharge. The study was carried out on isolated motor units of rat medial gastrocnemius muscle of young (5-10 mo) ...

Action observation is increasingly considered as a rehabilitation tool as it can increase the cortical excitability of muscles involved in the observed movements and therefore produce effector-specific motor facilitation. In order to investigate the action observation mechanisms, simple single joint intransitive movements have commonly been used. Still, how the observation ...

We hypothesized that considerable force reserve exists for the diaphragm muscle (DIAm) to generate transdiaphragmatic pressures (Pdi) necessary to sustain ventilation. In rats, we measured Pdi and DIAm EMG activity during different ventilatory (eupnea and hypoxia (10% O(2))-hypercapnia (5% CO(2))) and non-ventilatory (airway occlusion and sneezing induced by intranasal capsaicin) ...

Spasticity is characterized by a velocity-dependent increase in muscle tone related to disturbed sensory-motor control of muscle tone following upper motor neuron damage. Spasticity and its clinical implications are still poorly described. There is no consensus concerning the number of patients developing spasticity or the relationship between spasticity and motor ...

A male patient came to our clinic because of a continuous up and down movement of his right testis, which was present even during sleep. The nature and localization of the unilateral rhythmic cremasteric activity is investigated by electrophysiological methods. Investigations of the cremasteric muscles and genitofemoral nerve determined that ...

In surface electromyography (sEMG), the distribution of motor unit potential (MUP) velocities has been shown to reflect the proportion of faster and slower propagating MUPs. This study investigated whether the distribution of MUP velocities could distinguish between sprinters and endurance athletes in not-specifically trained muscle (biceps brachii). sEMG results were ...

Vocal learning, a key behavior in human speech development, occurs only in a small number of animal taxa. Ontogeny of vocal behavior in humans and songbirds involves acquisition of an acoustic model, which guides the development of self-generated vocalizations (sensorimotor period). How vocal development proceeds in the absence of an ...

We used surface EMG signal decomposition technology to study the control properties of numerous simultaneously active motor units. Six healthy human subjects of comparable age (21 +/- 0.63 yr) and physical fitness were recruited to perform isometric contractions of the vastus lateralis (VL), first dorsal interosseous (FDI), and tibialis anterior ...

The aim of this study was to develop a muscle architecture model able to account for the observed distributions of innervation ratios and fiber densities of different types of motor units in a muscle. A model algorithm is proposed and mathematically analyzed in order to obtain an inverse procedure that ...

Nerve sprouting to reinnervate partially denervated muscles is important in several disease and injury states. To examine the effectiveness of sprouting of active and inactive motor units (MUs) and the basis for a limit to sprouting, one of three rat lumbar spinal roots was cut under normal conditions and when ...

OBJECTIVES: To assess the vestibular fold muscle after cordectomy and laryngeal reconstruction, the pattern of motor unit recruitment during sound emission, and the morphologic characteristics of motor unit action potentials. DESIGN: Prospective analysis. SETTING: Tertiary academic hospital. PATIENTS: We evaluated 11 men (mean age, 65.7 years; age range, 53-82 years) ...

Motor unit number estimation (MUNE) allows for quantitative assessment of functional motor units in a nerve. Several techniques have been applied to human studies. Although MUNE has been performed in animals to study neurological disorders, reproducibility has not been addressed. We analyzed the test-retest reproducibility of an incremental MUNE technique ...

It is generally considered that hand amputation changes primary motor cortex (M1) stump muscle representations. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies show that the corticospinal excitability of a stump muscle and its homologous muscle on the intact side is not equivalent, and that the resting level of excitability is higher in ...

Space permanence simulations such as prolonged bed-rest can mimic some of the physiological modifications in the human body and provide study conditions that are more accessible than during space flight. A short term bed-rest experiment was organized to simulate the effects of weightlessness for studying the adaptation to this condition. ...

To understand the catapult mechanism that propels jumping in a planthopper insect, the innervation and action of key muscles were analyzed. The large trochanteral depressor muscle, M133b,c, is innervated by two motor neurons and by two dorsal unpaired median (DUM) neurons, all with axons in N3C. A smaller depressor muscle, ...

We report a 51-year-old male with a history of palpitations, hepatopathy and hypercholesterolemia, who habitually ate raw goat meat, and developed general fasciculations, muscle cramps in the lower limbs, distal muscle weakness and wasting, without upper motor neuron signs or sensory abnormalities. Diagnostic workup revealed positive antibodies against Toxocara canis ...

We studied the innervation and organization of motor units in the brachioradialis muscle of 25 normal human subjects. We recorded intramuscular EMG signals at points separated by 15 mm along the proximodistal muscle axis during moderate isometric contractions, identified from 27 to 61 (mean 39) individual motor units per subject ...

L1 radiculopathy is very rare and difficult to diagnose with needle electromyography. A patient presented with pain and hypesthesia on the anterolateral aspect of the left thigh. Nerve conduction studies and needle electromyography were normal, except for the quadratus lumborum and iliopsoas muscles, which showed abnormal spontaneous activity and polyphasic ...

The summation of contractile forces of motor units (MUs) was analyzed by comparing the recorded force during parallel stimulation of two and four individual MUs or four groups of MUs to the algebraic sum of their individual forces. Contractions of functionally-isolated single MUs of the medial gastrocnemius muscle were evoked ...

The aim of this study was to compare the decomposition results obtained from high-density surface electromyography (EMG) and concurrently recorded intramuscular EMG. Surface EMG signals were recorded with electrode grids from the tibialis anterior, biceps brachii, and abductor digiti minimi muscles of twelve healthy men during isometric contractions ranging between ...

OBJECTIVE: To compare the behavior of sternocleidomastoid motor units of patients with chronic neck pain and healthy controls. METHODS: Nine women (age, 40.4+/-3.5 yr) with chronic neck pain and nine age- and gender-matched healthy controls participated. Surface and intramuscular EMG were recorded from the sternocleidomastoid muscle bilaterally as subjects performed ...

To establish the existence of a central pattern generator for feeding in the larval central nervous system of two Drosophila species, the gross anatomy of feeding related muscles and their innervation is described, the motor units of the muscles identified and rhythmic motor output recorded from the isolated CNS. The ...

The genioglossus (GG) is considered the principle protrudor muscle of the human tongue. Unlike most skeletal muscles, GG electromyographic (EMG) activities are robustly preserved in sleep and thus may fulfill a critical role in preserving airway patency. Previous studies in human subjects also confirm that the GG EMG increases in ...

Elevated muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) features in many cardiovascular diseases, but how this sympathoexcitation is brought about differs across pathologies. Unitary recordings from post-ganglionic muscle vasoconstrictor neurones in human subjects have shown that the augmented MSNA in the obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) is associated with an increase in ...

Motor unit number estimation (MUNE) has been used to track motor unit attrition. Studies have used the modified multiple-point stimulation (MPS) technique, collecting three surface motor unit action potentials (sMUAPs) from 3 sites to calculate MUNE. Factoring additional sMUAPs should theoretically improve reproducibility, but the optimal number has not been ...

Motor unit layout algorithms have a significant effect on motor unit fibre densities recorded. Motor unit fibre densities are affected by both the method used to place the motor unit territories, and the mechanism by which muscle fibres are assigned to motor units. The first of these should emulate the ...

Motor output capabilities of the forelimb representation of dorsal motor area (PMd) and ventral motor area (PMv) were compared with primary motor cortex (M1) in terms of latency, strength, sign, and distribution of effects. Stimulus-triggered averages (60 microA) of electromyographic activity collected from 24 forelimb muscles were computed at 314 ...

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) of the neck and the shoulders are a growing problem in society. An interesting pattern of spontaneous muscle activity, the firing of a single motor unit, in the trapezius muscle is observed during a laboratory study in a rest state or a state with a mental ...

Platinum-based drugs, such as cisplatin and oxaliplatin, are well-known for inducing chronic sensory neuropathies but their acute and motor neurotoxicities are less well characterised. Use was made of nerve conduction studies and needle electromyography (EMG) to assess motor nerve excitability in cancer patients during their first treatment cycle with platinum-based ...