Estimation of the motor unit structure from scanning electromyography and surface electromyography recordings

In this thesis, several algorithmic procedures to estimate the MU fiber parameters from the waveform of a scanning-EMG signal (i.e., from the recording of a MUP in multiple positions along a linear corridor) have been developed. The different procedures correspond to different modifications of the scanning-EMG technique, which differ in the number of scanning needles and recording ports used to record the signal. The three proposed variants are: the 1-port recording, based on a single scanning needle with a single recording port placed at one side of the needle (i.e., a single fiber EMG needle); the 2-port recording, based on a single scanning needle, with two recording ports, placed at opposite sides of the needle; and the 4-port recording, based on two scanning needles, each one with two recording ports. The estimation system also uses a linear array of surface-EMG recordings to obtain complementary information about the MU. In this way, the recording setup to achieve the MU parameter estimation consists on a simultaneous surface- and scanning-EMG signal recording of the MUP. The estimation system has been evaluated for the three scanning-EMG recording configurations (1-port, 2-port, and 4-port), and compared to the case in which the estimation is performed from a MUP recorded at a single position. The evaluation has been done in a simulation framework, using state of the art models of the muscle, MUs, recruitment, and needles, and developing specific models for the simultaneous surface- and scanning-EMG recording process. This provides a controlled environment in which the performance of the system can be objectively quantified and evaluated.The results evidence that MU parameters are estimated much more accurately when using the scanning-EMG technique than when using a MUP recorded at a single position, corroborating the hypothesis that the use of signals recorded at multiple positions enhances the parameter estimation. Among the three proposed recording configurations, the poorest estimation results have been obtained for the 1-port configuration which, moreover, is only capable of estimating the MU fibers at one side of the needle. The 2-port configuration gives better results, and allows to estimate the MU fibers at both sides of the needle. The 4-port configuration is the one that provides the best performance, but it has the disadvantage of being the most difficult configuration to be physically implemented. In the view of these results, a deeper evaluation of the 2-port recording configuration is done. This is because it combines a good estimation performance with a relative ease to be physically implemented. An additional effort is done to calculate several global MU parameters, such as the MU fiber density, the average potential propagation velocity of the fibers, and the width of the innervation zone, from the resulting set of estimated fibers. These global MU parameters provide relevant physiological information from a clinical point of view. Hence global parameters connect the estimation system developed in this thesis with a future application in the diagnosis and follow-up of neuromuscular pathologies.