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Spectral moments of mechanomyographic signals recorded with accelerometer and microphone during sustained fatiguing contractions

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the trends of the first three power spectral moments of the mechanomyogram (MMG) signal recorded by a microphone (MMGMIC) and an accelerometer (MMGACC) during sustained contractions. MMG signals were recorded from the biceps brachii muscle in 14 healthy male subjects during a 3 min isometric elbow flexion at 30% of the maximal voluntary contraction. MMG absolute and normalised root mean square (RMS), mean power frequency (MNF), power spectral variance (Mc2), and skewness (μ3) were computed. For both MMGMIC and MMGACC, absolute and normalised RMS and Mc2 increased while MNF and μ3 decreased with contraction time (P<0.001). The rates of change of RMS over time were significantly correlated (P<0.001) for MMGMIC and MMGACC but not correlated for spectral moments. The coefficient of variation of RMS was higher for MMGMIC than for MMGACC, while the opposite was observed for μ3 (P<0.05). It was concluded that higher order spectral moments of the MMG signal change during sustained contraction, indicating a complex modification of the shape of the power spectrum and not just scaling of the bandwidth. This is most likely due to the additional motor unit recruitment with fatigue and to the non-linear summation of motor unit contributions to the signal. Moreover, the characteristics of MMG signals recorded with microphones and accelerometers have important differences, which should be taken into account when comparing results from different studies.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by The Danish National Research Foundation and the Danish Centre for International Cooperation and Mobility in Education and Training.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI), Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 7D-3, 9220, Aalborg, Denmark

    Pascal Madeleine, Hong-you Ge, Dario Farina & Lars Arendt-Nielsen

  2. Department of Kinesiology, University School of Physical Education, ul. Rzezbiarska 4, 51-629, Wroclaw, Poland

    Anna Jaskólska & Artur Jaskólski

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  1. Pascal Madeleine
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  2. Hong-you Ge
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  3. Anna Jaskólska
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  4. Dario Farina
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  5. Artur Jaskólski
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  6. Lars Arendt-Nielsen
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Correspondence to Pascal Madeleine.

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Submitted to: Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing

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Madeleine, P., Ge, Hy., Jaskólska, A. et al. Spectral moments of mechanomyographic signals recorded with accelerometer and microphone during sustained fatiguing contractions. Med Bio Eng Comput 44, 290–297 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-006-0036-2

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