Multi-electrode electromyography: developing electrical cross-sectional imaging of skeletal muscle.

多电极肌电图：开发骨骼肌的电横截面成像。

基本信息

批准号：
EP/K028421/1
负责人：
Roger Whittaker
金额：
$ 71.99万
依托单位：
Newcastle University
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2013
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2013 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FK028421%2F1
关键词：
Multi electrode electromyography developing electrical

项目摘要

Needle electromyography (EMG) is an essential diagnostic test in the investigation of patients with peripheral nerve and muscle disease. For conditions such as motor neuron disease, a relentlessly progressive degeneration of the motor system, it is the only diagnostic test available. However, current EMG technology has barely advanced in the past 50 years. EMG involves inserting a metal needle through the skin into a muscle, and recording the electrical activity produced by the muscle fibres. Diseases affecting the motor nerves or the muscle produce characteristic changes in this electrical activity. The signal is recorded from a single point at the needle tip, and herein lies the fundamental limitation of current technology. Since only a single recording surface is used, this 'single channel' recording consists of overlapping electrical signals from dozens of individual muscle fibres, and untangling these to work out how the muscle fibres are arranged within the muscle can be difficult. Furthermore, the volume of muscle sampled is tiny, meaning that in order to diagnose a widespread disease, such as motor neuron disease, the needle has to be repositioned several times within several muscles. This increases the pain for the patient and means that some studies can take over an hour to perform. Our proposal is to adapt and develop existing microfabrication techniques to produce a novel EMG electrode, of similar diameter to a conventional needle, which will record simultaneously from 64 points along the needle. This will allow the rapid and accurate localisation of each individual muscle fibre within the muscle without the need for needle movement, in effect producing an electrical cross-sectional image of the muscle. This will massively increase the accuracy of the test and significantly reduce the time taken. Our group consists of clinicians and basic scientists based within the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle and Newcastle University. We have already developed multi-electrodes for recording electrical activity from within the brain, using microfabrication facilities within Newcastle University. We will adapt these to record from human muscle, and will test these in human volunteers. We also have extensive experience in developing novel software to analyse the data from multi-channel recordings, and we will develop a suite of programs to display muscle structure and function in real-time. This will allow clinicians to view the results as they are collected allowing them to decide whether a diagnosis has been reached or if further muscles need to be studied. Our ultimate aim is to develop a prototype clinically applicable system which we will then develop in partnership with a commercial medical instrument company. There are approximately 100,000 EMGs performed each year in the UK. Even if our system reduces the time taken by ten minutes each, this will have a massive cost saving for the NHS, quite apart from the benefits to patients in terms of improved diagnosis and reduced discomfort. We believe that this technique is achievable, and will be as revolutionary for EMG as the development of magnetic resonance imaging has been for radiology.

针肌电图 (EMG) 是调查周围神经和肌肉疾病患者的重要诊断测试。对于运动神经元疾病（运动系统的持续进行性退化）等疾病，这是唯一可用的诊断测试。然而，目前的肌电图技术在过去 50 年里几乎没有进步。肌电图是将金属针穿过皮肤插入肌肉，并记录肌肉纤维产生的电活动。影响运动神经或肌肉的疾病会导致这种电活动发生特征性变化。信号是从针尖处的单个点记录的，这是当前技术的基本限制。由于仅使用单个记录表面，这种“单通道”记录由来自数十个单独肌肉纤维的重叠电信号组成，并且解开这些信号以弄清楚肌肉纤维在肌肉内的排列方式可能很困难。此外，采样的肌肉体积很小，这意味着为了诊断广泛的疾病，例如运动神经元疾病，针必须在几块肌肉内重新定位多次。这会增加患者的痛苦，并且意味着某些研究可能需要一个多小时才能完成。我们的建议是采用和开发现有的微加工技术来生产一种新型 EMG 电极，其直径与传统针相似，可以沿针同时记录 64 个点。这将允许快速准确地定位肌肉内的每个单独的肌纤维，而不需要针移动，实际上产生肌肉的电横截面图像。这将大大提高测试的准确性并显着减少所需的时间。我们的团队由皇家维多利亚医院、纽卡斯尔和纽卡斯尔大学的临床医生和基础科学家组成。我们已经利用纽卡斯尔大学的微加工设施开发了多电极，用于记录大脑内部的电活动。我们将调整这些以记录人体肌肉，并将在人类志愿者中进行测试。我们在开发新颖软件来分析多通道记录数据方面也拥有丰富的经验，我们将开发一套程序来实时显示肌肉结构和功能。这将使临床医生能够在收集结果时查看结果，从而决定是否已达到诊断或是否需要进一步研究肌肉。我们的最终目标是开发一个临床适用的原型系统，然后我们将与一家商业医疗器械公司合作开发该系统。英国每年大约进行 100,000 次肌电图检查。即使我们的系统将每次所需的时间减少十分钟，这也将为 NHS 节省大量成本，此外还为患者带来改善诊断和减少不适的好处。我们相信这项技术是可以实现的，并且对于肌电图来说将是革命性的，就像磁共振成像对于放射学的发展一样。