Introduction. Compound Muscle Action Potential (CMAP) scan is a noninvasive promissory technique for neurodegenerative pathologies diagnosis. In this work new CMAP scan protocols were implemented to study the influence of electrical pulse waveform on peripheral nerve excitability. Methods. A total of 13 healthy subjects were tested. Stimulation was performed with an increasing intensities range from 4 to 30 mA. The procedure was repeated 4 times per subject, using a different single pulse stimulation waveform: monophasic square and triangular and quadratic and biphasic square. Results. Different waveforms elicit different intensity-response amplitude curves. The square pulse needs less current to generate the same response amplitude regarding the other waves and this effect is gradually decreasing for the triangular, quadratic, and biphasic pulse, respectively. Conclusion. The stimulation waveform has a direct influence on the stimulus-response slope and consequently on the motoneurons excitability. This can be a new prognostic parameter for neurodegenerative disorders.
Nowadays, most of the software for electrostimulation is made with specific purposes, and in some cases they have complicated user interfaces and large, bulky designs that deter usability and acceptability. A novel Human Computer Interaction framework was developed enabling the end user to configure and control an electrostimulator, surpassing the specific use of several electrostimulator software. In the configuration the user is able to compile different types of electrical impulses (modes) in a temporal session, and this session can be actuated in the control. To help the user in creating any type of protocol (session) we devised three standard impulse generator (rectangular, sin and triangular) and a new way of creating electrical impulses by drawing, then fitting this data and process it with a mathematical algorithm for finding simple equations to describe the data. With it, the user has the possibility to choose the best equation that fits the draw and store it mathematically structured, thus adding not only a draw editor, but also an equation editor. Therefore, we provide a tool for clinical, sports and investigation where the user is free to produce their own protocols by sequentially compile electrical impulses.
Large amounts of data, increasing every day, are stored and transferred through the internet. These data are normally weakly structured making information disperse, uncorrelated, non-transparent and difficult to access and share. Semantic Web, proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), addresses this problem by promoting semantic structured data, like ontologies, enabling machines to perform more work involved in finding, combining, and acting upon information on the web. Pursuing this vision, a Knowledge Acquisition System was created, written in JavaScript using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) as the data structure and JSON Schema to define that structure, enabling new ways of acquiring and storing knowledge semantically structured. A novel Human Computer Interaction framework was developed with this knowledge system, enabling the end user to, practically, configure all kinds of electrical devices and control them. With the data structured by a Schema, the software becomes robust, error-free and human readable. To show the potential of this tool, the end user can configure an electrostimulator, surpassing the specific use of many Electrophysiology software. Therefore, we provide a tool for clinical, sports and investigation where the user has the liberty to produce their own protocols by sequentially compile electrical impulses.
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