Surface electromyography in animal biomechanics: A systematic review

Abstract

The study of muscle activity using surface electromyography (sEMG) is commonly used for investigations of the neuromuscular system in man. Although sEMG has faced methodological challenges, considerable technical advances have been made in the last few decades. Similarly, the field of animal biomechanics, including sEMG, has grown despite being confronted with often complex experimental conditions. In human sEMG research, standardised protocols have been developed, however these are lacking in animal sEMG. Before standards can be proposed in this population group, the existing research in animal sEMG should be collated and evaluated. Therefore the aim of this review is to systematically identify and summarise the literature in animal sEMG focussing on (1) species, breeds, activities and muscles investigated, and (2) electrode placement and normalisation methods used. The databases PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Vetmed Resource were searched systematically for sEMG studies in animals and 38 articles were included in the final review. Data on methodological quality was collected and summarised. The findings from this systematic review indicate the divergence in animal sEMG methodology and as a result, future steps required to develop standardisation in animal sEMG are proposed.

Surface EMG signal normalisation and filtering improves sensitivity of equine gait analysis

“…Similar questions arise for SP practices involving sEMG signal normalisation. Valentin and Zsoldos (2016) reported that normalisation techniques are frequently absent in the equine sEMG literature, but no studies have demonstrated the consequences of this on the interpretation of equine sEMG data. In the human literature, Lehman and McGill (1999) investigated the effect of normalisation on the sensitivity of sEMG outcome measures for analysing the relationship between upper and lower rectus abdominus (RA) during a trunk curl exercise.…”

“…Unfortunately, standards for sEMG signal detection and processing in equine subjects are not currently available and methodological variation within equine sEMG literature is particularly evident for SP methods (Valentin and Zsoldos, 2016). Furthermore, fundamental lowfrequency noise attenuation and normalisation techniques are absent, or not consistently applied in the equine sEMG literature (Valentin and Zsoldos, 2016). Reliance on human subject-based sEMG guidelines for equine subjects is not recommended, as differences in size, mass, bipedal vs. quadrupedal gait and skin properties alone are sufficient to question their equivalence.…”

“…Reliance on human subject-based sEMG guidelines for equine subjects is not recommended, as differences in size, mass, bipedal vs. quadrupedal gait and skin properties alone are sufficient to question their equivalence. Thus, the need for a best practice framework that follows human sEMG guidelines while taking into consideration the unique challenges associated with detecting and processing sEMG data from equine subjects, has been initiated (St. George et al, 2018;Valentin and Zsoldos, 2016). Our recent work (St. George et al 2018) demonstrated that simply adopting human sEMG guidelines for removal of motion artefact for equine gait studies is not adequate.…”

Measuring Potential from Muscle Activity of Lower Arm

“…It has been shown that ENMG plays role in detecting the muscle activity in the patients with chronic respiratory disease [2], evaluating the respiration pattern of newborn baby, predicting the lung function of the children with asthma [3], detecting speaking ability in deaf people [4], and fatigue analysis [5]. The ENMG is not only a powerful tool for study the muscle function in human, but also in animals [6].…”

Novel Methods for Surface EMG Analysis and Exploration Based on Multi-Modal Gaussian Mixture Models

“…Of all animals, horses have most commonly been investigated using sEMG in a large number of studies (cf Valentin and Zsoldos [ 13 ]). This is due to the importance of their musculoskeletal system for their use, but also due to the large superficial muscle areas available for sEMG such as leg and back muscles.…”