Dynamic monitoring of forearm muscles using one-dimensional sonomyography system

Abstract

We introduce a method, known as one-dimensional sonomyography (1-D SMG), that uses A-mode ultrasound signals to detect dynamic thickness changes in skeletal muscle during contraction. We custom-designed a 1-D SMG system to collect synchronized A-mode ultrasound, joint angle, and surface electromyography (EMG) signals of forearm muscles during wrist extension. We extracted the 1-D SMG signal from the ultrasound signal by automatically tracking the corresponding echoes, which we then used to calculate muscle thickness changes. We tested the right forearm muscles of nine nondisabled young subjects while they performed wrist extensions at 15.0, 22.5, and 30.0 cycles/min and their largest wrist extension angle ranged from 80° to 90°. We found that the muscle deformation and EMG root mean square signals correlated linearly with wrist extension angle. The ratio of deformation to wrist angle was significantly different among the subjects (p <0.001) but not among the trials of different extension rates for each subject (p = 0.9). The results demonstrate that 1-D SMG can be reliably performed and that it has the potential for skeletal muscle assessment and prosthesis control.