Noninvasive High-resolution Pediatric Surface EMG

 描述(申请人提供)：本建议的目标是开发无创表面肌电(EMG)检查方法，以克服常规有创针刺EMG检查脊肌萎缩症(SMA)和其他儿科神经肌肉疾病的缺点。这项拟议的研究有两个计划目标。第一个目标是开发和测试使用柔性表面电极阵列的非侵入性表面肌电分解方法，从而为其广泛的临床应用，特别是在儿科人群中的应用奠定基础。这包括使用计算和实验方法来验证和改进所开发的方法。第二个目的是使用新开发的无创方法对SMA患者的病变进行表面肌电检查，主要是运动单位水平的病变。拟议项目中采用的方法在于表面肌电记录和信号处理方法的最新进展。我们的研究设计是基于适合于儿科体表肌电记录的二维高分辨率柔性电极阵列。利用电极阵列的空间信息和多通道记录，我们将使用最合适的肌电信号处理方法，特别是盲源分离技术，从表面肌电信号中提取单个运动单位的活动。对于临床应用，我们将专注于开发的方法的高效、健壮、自动化和用户友好的实施。然后对SMA患者进行高分辨率的表面肌电信号检查，以确定SMA的关键电诊断发现是否可以从检查的肌肉表面做出。拟议的活动将有助于提高儿童肌电检查的耐受性，同时保持/提高诊断的敏感性和特异性，从而使大量患有神经肌肉疾病的婴儿、儿童和青少年受益，他们可能需要进行肌电检查。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this proposal is to develop noninvasive surface electromyogram (EMG) examination methods to overcome disadvantages of routine invasive needle EMG for examination of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and other pediatric neuromuscular diseases. There are two planned aims for the proposed study. The first aim is to develop and test noninvasive surface EMG decomposition methods using flexible surface electrode arrays, thus laying the foundation for their broad clinical applications, particularly for pediatric population. This includes validating and refining the developed methods using both computational and experimental approaches. The second aim is to perform a surface EMG examination of the pathological changes in SMA patients, mainly at the motor unit level, using the newly developed noninvasive methods. The approach utilized in the proposed project lie in recent advances in both surface EMG recording and signal processing methods. Our research design is based on 2-dimensional high resolution flexible electrode arrays suitable for pediatric surface EMG recording. Taking advantage of the spatial information and multi-channel recording of the electrode arrays, we will use the most appropriate EMG signal processing methods, particularly blind source separation techniques, to extract single motor unit activities from surface EMG. Toward clinical application, we will focus on efficient, robust, automatic and user-friendly implementation of the developed methods. A high resolution surface EMG examination of SMA patients will then be performed, with a view to determining whether the key electrodiagnostic findings of SMA can be made from the surface of examined muscles. The proposed activities will do much to improve the tolerability of pediatric EMG examination while maintaining/enhancing diagnostic sensitivity and specificity, thus benefiting a large number of infants, children and adolescents with neuromuscular diseases who may need EMG examination.