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Rectification is required to extract oscillatory envelope modulation from surface electromyographic signals
- Source :
- Journal of Neurophysiology. 112:1685-1691
- Publication Year :
- 2014
- Publisher :
- American Physiological Society, 2014.
-
Abstract
- Rectification of surface electromyographic (EMG) recordings prior to their correlation with other signals is a widely used form of preprocessing. Recently this practice has come into question, elevating the subject of EMG rectification to a topic of much debate. Proponents for rectifying suggest it accentuates the EMG spike timing information, whereas opponents indicate it is unnecessary and its nonlinear distortion of data is potentially destructive. Here we examine the necessity of rectification on the extraction of muscle responses, but for the first time using a known oscillatory input to the muscle in the form of electrical vestibular stimulation. Participants were exposed to sinusoidal vestibular stimuli while surface and intramuscular EMG were recorded from the left medial gastrocnemius. We compared the unrectified and rectified surface EMG to single motor units to determine which method best identified stimulus-EMG coherence and phase at the single-motor unit level. Surface EMG modulation at the stimulus frequency was obvious in the unrectified surface EMG. However, this modulation was not identified by the fast Fourier transform, and therefore stimulus coherence with the unrectified EMG signal failed to capture this covariance. Both the rectified surface EMG and single motor units displayed significant coherence over the entire stimulus bandwidth (1–20 Hz). Furthermore, the stimulus-phase relationship for the rectified EMG and motor units shared a moderate correlation ( r = 0.56). These data indicate that rectification of surface EMG is a necessary step to extract EMG envelope modulation due to motor unit entrainment to a known stimulus.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
Surface (mathematics)
Physiology
Acoustics
Young Adult
Rectification
Humans
Muscle, Skeletal
Envelope (waves)
Motor Neurons
Vestibular system
Physics
Communication
Electromyography
business.industry
General Neuroscience
Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
musculoskeletal system
Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials
body regions
Motor unit
Modulation
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Female
business
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15221598 and 00223077
- Volume :
- 112
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Neurophysiology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....d24b7f684d246de313a38d5b14e85db1