Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29949020›Full record

ArticleMedical & biological engineering & computing2018

Sub-threshold depolarizing pre-pulses can enhance the efficiency of biphasic stimuli in transcutaneous neuromuscular electrical stimulation.

Jose Luis Vargas Luna, Winfried Mayr, Jorge-Armando Cortés-Ramirez

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Article in Medical & biological engineering & computing, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Jose Luis Vargas LunaCenter for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria. joseluis.vargasluna@gmail.com.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5125-1999
Winfried MayrCenter for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
Jorge-Armando Cortés-RamirezTecnologico de Monterrey, Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Ave. Eugenio Garza Sada 2501 Sur, 64849, Monterrey, Mexico.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

There is multiple evidence in the literature that a sub-threshold pre-pulse, delivered immediately prior to an electrical stimulation pulse, can alter the activation threshold of nerve fibers and motor unit recruitment characteristics. So far, previously published works combined monophasic stimuli with sub-threshold depolarizing pre-pulses (DPPs) with inconsistent findings-in some studies, the DPPs decreased the activation threshold, while in others it was increased. This work aimed to evaluate the effect of DPPs during biphasic transcutaneous electrical stimulation and to study the possible mechanism underlying those differences. Sub-threshold DPPs between 0.5 and 15 ms immediately followed by biphasic or monophasic pulses were administered to the tibial nerve; the electrophysiological muscular responses (motor-wave, M-wave) were monitored via electromyogram (EMG) recording from the soleus muscle. The data show that, under the specific studied conditions, DPPs tend to lower the threshold for nerve fiber activation rather than elevating it. DPPs with the same polarity as the leading phase of biphasic stimuli are more effective to increase the sensitivity. This work assesses for the first time the effect of DPPs on biphasic pulses, which are required to achieve charge-balanced stimulation, and it provides guidance on the effect of polarity and intensity to take full advantage of this feature. Graphical abstract In this work, the effect of sub-threshold depolarizing pre-pulses (DPP) is investigated in a setup with transcutaneous electrical stimulation. We found that, within the tested 0-15 ms DPP duration range, the DPPs administered immediately before biphasic pulses proportionally increase the nerve excitability as visible in the M-waves recorded from the soleus muscle. Interestingly, these findings oppose published results, where DPPs, administered immediately before monophasic stimuli via implanted electrodes, led to decrease of nerve excitability.

Indexed as

AdultDifferential ThresholdFemaleHumansMaleTibial NerveTranscutaneous Electric Nerve StimulationConditioningDepolarizing pre-pulseElectrical stimulationH-reflexM-wave

Identifiers

PMID29949020
PMCPMC6245015

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.