Typical <i>m. triceps surae</i> morphology and architecture measurement from 0 to 18 years: A narrative review

Bell, Matthew; Masruri, Ghaliya Al; Fernandez, Justin; Williams, Sîan; Agur, Anne; Stott, N. Susan; Hajarizadeh, Behzad; Mirjalili, Ali

doi:10.1111/joa.13584

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Muscle ultrasonography is increasingly used to improve the understanding of musculoskeletal impairments in children with spastic Cerebral Palsy (SCP) (Williams et al ., 2021). During growth, adaptations in skeletal muscles, i.e., an increase in muscle length and anatomical cross-sectional area (aCSA), resulting in increasing muscle volume, occur in both typically developing (TD) children and children with SCP (Benard et al ., 2011; Modlesky and Zhang, 2019; Bell et al ., 2021; Handsfield et al ., 2022). However, these increases are lower in children with SCP compared to TD children (Barber et al ., 2016), while muscle tendons were found to be longer (Barrett and Lichtwark, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muscle morphology and architecture of the medial gastrocnemius between typically developing children with different ancestral backgrounds

Walhain

Declerck

Fat

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Introduction: Muscle ultrasonography is frequently used to improve the understanding of musculoskeletal impairments in children with cerebral palsy. So far, most studies on muscle morphology and architecture have included typically developing children and children with cerebral palsy with similar ancestry, being mainly Caucasian. Less is known about differences in muscle morphology and architecture between children with different ancestral backgrounds. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare muscle morphology and architecture of the medial gastrocnemius and Achilles tendon of Surinamese typically developing children from African, South Asian and Southeast Asian descent. Method: This explorative cohort study included 100 typically developing children identified as Maroon (Ghana, African descent), Hindustani (India, South Asian) or Javanese (Indonesia, Southeast Asian), aged 5 to 10 years. A conventional B-mode 2D ultrasound was used to define anatomical cross-sectional area (aCSA), fascicle length and pennation angle (architectural parameters). The muscle belly length, volume and physiological cross-sectional area (pCSA), as well as the tendon length (morphological parameters) were defined using 3D freehand ultrasound, which combines B-mode 2D ultrasound with 3D motion tracking. Muscle and tendon lengths were normalized to the total muscle tendon unit (MTU) lengths and fascicle lengths to muscle belly lengths, while volume, aCSA and PCSA were normalized to body mass. One-way Anova with post hoc t-tests were used to investigate differences between the ancestral groups. A two-way repeated measures Anova was used to define whether the extensibility of the muscle tendon, belly and fascicle differed between ancestral groups for the three conditions, i.e. when applying 0Nm, 1Nm and 4Nm ankle dorsiflexion torque. Results: The ancestral subgroups included 34 Hindustani, 34 Javanese and 32 Maroon children. Normalized belly length was 11% shorter in Maroon and 7% shorter in Hindustani children compared to Javanese children (p = <0.001 and p = 0.002, respectively). Normalized fascicle length of Javanese children was 23% longer compared to Maroon and 11% longer compared to Hindustani children (p < 0.001 and p = 0.010, respectively). Normalized muscle volume was significantly higher in Javanese compared to Hindustani children (p = 0.002). The normalized aCSA was higher in Javanese children compared to the Maroon children (p = 0.008), while pCSA was higher for Maroon children compared to the Hindustani children (p = 0.007). The pennation angle of the fascicle with the deeper aponeuroses was larger in Maroon compared to Javanese children (p = 0.015). There were no differences in the extensibility of the muscle belly, tendon and fascicle between ancestral groups. Discussion: Ancestry-specific reference data of the morphology of the medial gastrocnemius and Achilles tendon are needed when investigating altered muscle morphology in children with cerebral palsy. The current study showed differences in morphology (muscle belly-, tendon length and muscle volume, aCSA) and architecture (pCSA, fascicle length and deeper pennation angle) between children with different ancestry. These differences were most pronounced for Javanese compared to Maroon or Hindustani children. Future studies should report the ancestral background when describing muscle morphology and architecture of children and ancestral specifications in normative databases should be included.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muscle morphology and architecture of the medial gastrocnemius between typically developing children with different ancestral backgrounds

Walhain

Declerck

Fat

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Muscle ultrasonography is increasingly used to improve the understanding of musculoskeletal impairments in children with spastic Cerebral Palsy (SCP) (Williams et al, 2021). During growth, adaptations in skeletal muscles, namely an increase in muscle length and anatomical cross‐sectional area (ACSA), resulting in increases muscle volume, occur in both typically developing (TD) children and children with SCP (Bell et al, 2021; Benard et al, 2011; Handsfield et al, 2022; Modlesky & Zhang, 2019). However, these increases are lower in children with SCP compared to TD children (Barber et al, 2016), while tendons are found to be longer (Barrett & Lichtwark, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muscle morphology and architecture of the medial gastrocnemius between typically developing children with different ancestral background

Walhain,

Declerck,

Chin A Fat

et al. 2023

Journal of Anatomy

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Muscle ultrasonography is frequently used to improve the understanding of musculoskeletal impairments in children with spastic cerebral palsy (SCP). So far, most studies on muscle morphology and architecture have included typically developing children and children with SCP with similar ancestry, being mainly Caucasian. Less is known about differences in muscle morphology between children with different ancestral backgrounds. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare muscle morphology and architecture of the medial gastrocnemius in typically developing children with African, South Asian and Southeast Asian descent from Suriname. This explorative cohort study identified children as Maroon (Ghana, African descent), Hindustani (India, South Asian) or Javanese (Indonesia, Southeast Asian), aged 5–10 years. Using 3D freehand ultrasound with the subject prone, the following medial gastrocnemius parameters were defined: muscle tendon unit (MTU) length, muscle belly length, tendon length, muscle volume, muscle thickness, anatomical cross‐sectional area (ACSA), fascicle length, pennation angle, and physiological cross‐sectional area (PCSA). In addition, differences between ancestral groups were assessed for the length of the MTU, muscle, tendon and fascicles in two passive stretch conditions corresponding to an externally applied joint torque of 1Nm and 4Nm. One‐way ANOVA with post hoc t‐tests were used to investigate differences between the ancestral groups. In total, 100 Hindustani (n = 34), Javanese (n = 34) and Maroon (n = 32) children were included. For statistical analyses, we matched the children by age, which resulted in groups of 25 children per ancestral group (n = 75). There were no differences found in MTU length, muscle belly length, ACSA, PCSA and muscle volume. Tendon length, fascicle length and pennation angle were different between ancestral groups. Compared to Javanese children, tendon length was longer (p = 0.001) and pennation angle (p = 0.001) was larger in Maroon children and fascicle length was shorter in both Maroon and Hindustani children (p < 0.001). While there was a difference found in MTU length at different conditions of passive stretch between ancestries, no differences were found in the muscle, tendon and fascicles. This is the first study that investigated macroscopic morphological and architectural parameters for the medial gastrocnemius in one extended cohort of typically developing children, stratified in three ancestral subgroups. The current results imply that ancestry‐specific reference data for children are needed, especially for tendon length, fascicle length and pennation angle when investigating altered muscle morphology in neurological or neuromuscular pathologies, such as SCP. Future studies should report the ancestral background when describing muscle morphology and architecture of children and ancestral specifications should be included in normative databases.

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“…Knowledge of growth rates in typically developing children may have implications for understanding disordered growth, for example, in children with neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy. Currently, it is largely unknown if growth rates differ between muscles, because most studies of muscle growth in childhood have investigated only one muscle (Bell et al, 2021;Benard et al, 2011;Binzoni et al, 2001;De Beukelaer et al, 2023;D'Souza et al, 2019;Herskind et al, 2016;Morse et al, 2008;Walhain et al, 2023;Weide et al, 2015Weide et al, , 2020 or a few muscles (Böl et al, 2017;Handsfield et al, 2022;Modlesky & Zhang, 2020;Mogi & Wakahara, 2022;O'Brien et al, 2010;Peeters et al, 2023;Siebert et al, 2017;Williams et al, 2022;Yanagisawa et al, 2014). O'Brien et al (2010) reported that the four components of the quadriceps muscles undergo similar relative increases in volume from childhood to adulthood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most in vivo measurements of human muscle volumes have been conducted using three‐dimensional ultrasound imaging (Bell et al., 2021 ; Peeters et al., 2023 ; Walhain et al., 2020 ; Weide et al., 2020 ; Williams et al., 2021 ) but ultrasound imaging is more difficult with deep muscles so its application in studies of muscle growth has been largely limited to superficial muscles. Some studies have used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI; Bell et al., 2021 ; D'Souza et al., 2019 ; Handsfield et al., 2014 ; Handsfield et al., 2016 ; Handsfield et al., 2017 ; Morse et al., 2008 ; Noble et al., 2014 ; Noble et al., 2017 ; O'Brien et al., 2010 ; Oberhofer et al., 2010 ; Pitcher et al., 2018 ; Vanmechelen et al., 2018 ; Yanagisawa et al., 2014 ) making it possible to measure the volume of all muscles. Even so, most MRI studies have analysed only a small number of muscles because the process of manually segmenting many muscles from a single participant, or of just one or two muscles from a large cohort, is very time‐consuming (Domroes et al., 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human lower leg muscles grow asynchronously

Chow,

Morgan,

Rae

et al. 2023

Journal of Anatomy

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Muscle volume must increase substantially during childhood growth to generate the power required to propel the growing body. One unresolved but fundamental question about childhood muscle growth is whether muscles grow at equal rates; that is, if muscles grow in synchrony with each other. In this study, we used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and advances in artificial intelligence methods (deep learning) for medical image segmentation to investigate whether human lower leg muscles grow in synchrony. Muscle volumes were measured in 10 lower leg muscles in 208 typically developing children (eight infants aged less than 3 months and 200 children aged 5 to 15 years). We tested the hypothesis that human lower leg muscles grow synchronously by investigating whether the volume of individual lower leg muscles, expressed as a proportion of total lower leg muscle volume, remains constant with age. There were substantial age‐related changes in the relative volume of most muscles in both boys and girls (p < 0.001). This was most evident between birth and five years of age but was still evident after five years. The medial gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, the largest muscles in infancy, grew faster than other muscles in the first five years. The findings demonstrate that muscles in the human lower leg grow asynchronously. This finding may assist early detection of atypical growth and allow targeted muscle‐specific interventions to improve the quality of life, particularly for children with neuromotor conditions such as cerebral palsy.

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Typical m. triceps surae morphology and architecture measurement from 0 to 18 years: A narrative review

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n-NonCo mmerc ial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Cited by 5 publications

References 83 publications

Muscle morphology and architecture of the medial gastrocnemius between typically developing children with different ancestral backgrounds

Muscle morphology and architecture of the medial gastrocnemius between typically developing children with different ancestral backgrounds

Muscle morphology and architecture of the medial gastrocnemius between typically developing children with different ancestral background

Human lower leg muscles grow asynchronously

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