Weakness and atrophy are clinical signs that accompany muscle denervation resulting from motor neuron disease, peripheral neuropathies, and injury. Advances in our understanding of the genetics and molecular biology of these disorders have led to the development of therapeutic alternatives designed to slow denervation and promote reinnervation. Preclinical in vitro research gave rise to the nee...

Weakness and atrophy are clinical signs that accompany muscle denervation resulting from motor neuron disease, peripheral neuropathies and injury. Advances in our understanding of the genetics and molecular biology of these disorders have led to the development of therapeutic alternatives designed to slow denervation and promote reinnervation. Preclinical in vitro research gave rise to the need...

The documented impact of contractile level on decomposition-enhanced spike-triggered averaging motor unit number estimates (MUNEs) in young adults demonstrates the importance of selecting an objective contraction intensity that yields the most representative MUNE for a given muscle. Whether the same contraction intensity would be ideal in an altered system (e.g., by aging or disease) has yet to...

Motor unit number estimation (MUNE) is an important electrophysiological technique for quantitative measurement of motor neuron loss. Although commonly used, there is no consensus concerning the optimal procedure for statistical MUNE, particularly regarding several operator-dependent variables. To assess the variables, we analyzed 500 sequential, submaximal compound muscle action potential (CMA...

Major LA, Hegedus J, Weber DJ, Gordon T, Jones KE. Method for counting motor units in mice and validation using a mathematical model. J Neurophysiol 97: 1846–1856, 2007. First published December 6, 2006; doi:10.1152/jn.00904.2006. Weakness and atrophy are clinical signs that accompany muscle denervation resulting from motor neuron disease, peripheral neuropathies, and injury. Advances in our un...

INTRODUCTION Compound muscle action potential (CMAP) scans are detailed stimulus-response curves which provide information about motor unit properties in neuromuscular disorders. This study assessed a method of automatic motor unit number estimation (MUNE) from 5-min CMAP scans. METHODS A preliminary model, derived from the variance and slope of the scan, is refined to fit the CMAP scan more ...

Objective: Reflexive and active control of the external anal sphincter (EAS) is essential for maintaining regulated colonic functions. Anorectal dysfunction, often related to compromised function of the EAS, is one of the major complaints in patients. Currently, the clinical diagnosis of anorectal dysfunction includes manometry, motor latency test, and single fiber electromyography (EMG). Howev...

All muscle contractions are dependent on the functioning of motor units. In diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), progressive loss of motor units leads to gradual paralysis. A major difficulty in the search for a treatment for these diseases has been the lack of a reliable measure of disease progression. One possible measure would be an estimate of the number of surviving motor ...

The statistical method of motor unit number estimation (MUNE) uses the natural stochastic variation in a muscle’s compound response to electrical stimulation to obtain an estimate of the number of recruitable motor units. The current method assumes that this variation follows a Poisson distribution. We present an alternative that instead assumes a binomial distribution. Results of computer simu...