Biomedical Instrumentation

BME-301
Lecture -5

Dr. Muhammad Umair Ahmad Khan

25-09-2023
Electromyography (EMG)
• Electromyography (EMG) is an experimental technique concerned
with the development, recording and analysis of myoelectric signals.
Myoelectric signals are formed by physiological variations in the state
of muscle fiber membranes."
•
EMG
Electromyography (EMG)
• Typical benefits of EMG
The use of EMG starts with the basic question: “What are the
muscles doing?”
Typical benefits are:
• EMG allows to directly “look” into the muscle
• It allows measurement of muscular performance
• Helps in decision making both before/after surgery
• Documents treatment and training regimes
• Helps patients to “find” and train their muscles
• Allows analysis to improve sports activities
• Detects muscle response in ergonomic studies
EMG
EMG
• “Electromyography (EMG) is an experimental technique concerned
with the development, recording and analysis of myoelectric signals.
Myoelectric signals are formed by physiological variations in the state
of muscle fiber membranes.”
• EMG measures the electrical signals that initiate the muscle
contraction.
• Three different parameters can be determined by electromyography:
• Timing – when is a muscle activated?
• Force – How strongly does a muscle contract?
• Fatigue – Can a muscle call up its full power?
EMG
• Surface electromyography (sEMG) has a special significance. In this
method, electrical signals are measured by means of electrodes
attached to the skin. In contrast to so-called intramuscular EMGs, in
which the electrodes are stuck with a needle directly into the
corresponding muscle, this has a great advantage: it is non-invasive.
As a result, the subject can move much more freely.
• EMG to record the electrical signal that initiates muscle contraction.
This signal is the so-called action potential (AP), which is conducted
from the nerve cells via motor end plates to the muscle.
EMG
• If an electrode is now placed above the muscle to be examined,
depolarization and subsequent repolarization is measured in the
form of a bipolar voltage change.
EMG
EMG
• In normal conditions, it is extremely rare for a single motor unit (which
consists of a motor end plate and one or more muscle fibers) to be
innervated individually. This is because usually, several motor units “fire” and
thereby cause the muscle to twitch.
• However, with electromyography you are not able to view and record all
MUAPs in a differentiated manner and therefore, the signals are
superimposed.
• The resulting EMG signal is bipolar with a symmetrical distribution of
positive and negative values, which means that the average value is zero.
• The amplitude of the sEMG signal is in a range from µV to low mV. Because
of this low amplitude, it is necessary to amplify the signal by amplifiers with
a range of 1000 to 10000. The energetic distribution of the EMG signal is
essentially in the frequency range from 0 to 500 Hz, with the dominant
components lying in the range 50-150 Hz.
EMG
1) The initial control signal to contract a muscle arrives from the brain
in the spinal cord.
2) Signal gets transmitted to several motor units.
3) The signal arrives at the muscle and is transformed to a MUAP. The
muscle contracts and produces a muscle force.
4) Superposition of individual MUAPs and their sum as the resulting
EMG signal. The sum of MUAPs determines the total muscle force.
EMG
• The physiological noise contains all the body's own processes that
take place in the body and emit electrical signals that can be picked
up by the surface electrodes. These interfering noises can be reduced
by placing the sensors further away from the source of the interfering
noises and with filter methods.
EMG
• Effect of the relative movement betweeen sEMG electrode attached
to the skin and the corresponding muscle below.
• If you contract a muscle dynamically, it moves below the skin. So, if
you attach the sEMG sensor on to the skin, the area of the muscle
from which you are picking up the sEMG signal will also move. This
can be problematic in several ways. As shown in Figure 6, dynamic
contractions of a muscle can cause changes in the tissue filter
between the origin of the signal (muscle membrane) and the sensor.
This affects the amplitude and frequency spectrum of the sEMG
signal,
EMG
• SKIN PREPARATION
• The quality of the sEMG signal depends strongly on the conditions of the
interface between skin and sensor. A preparation of the skin is essential. The
aim is to minimize the resistance of the skin as much as possible in order to
enable the sEMG signal to be picked up accurately.
• The first is that you should remove all hairs from the area where the sensor
is to be placed.
• The second point is to clean the skin. This involves removing dead skin cells
that have a high resistance and cleaning the skin from dirt and sweat. In
most cases it is sufficient to rub the skin lightly with a cloth soaked in pure
alcohol.
EMG
EMG
SIGNAL PROCESSING
• RECTIFICATION
• The raw EMG signal is bipolar with a symmetrical distribution of
positive and negative voltage values. If you later want to compare
different EMG bursts with each other, you cannot simply use the
average value of all data points for the comparison, because this is
zero. To enable a comparison, the first step is usually a rectification of
the whole signal. To do this, one takes the magnitude of all measured
data points so that all values are positive.
EMG
EMG
• SMOOTHING
• Due to the randomly overlapping MUAPs during muscle contraction,
random interference patterns occur in the raw signal of the EMG,
which is why deflections viewed individually cannot provide much
information about the working of the muscles. In order to counteract
this and increase the informative value, the EMG signal is smoothed.
EMG
FILTERING
EOG
• Electrooculography (EOG) is a technique for measuring the corneo-
retinal standing potential that exists between the front and the back
of the human eye. The resulting signal is called the electrooculogram.
• It detects movement by placing electrodes near the eye. We
distinguish VEOG for vertical eye movement (looking up and down)
and HEOG for horizontal eye movement (looking left and right).
EOG
• Electrooculography (EOG) is a technique for measuring the corneo-
retinal standing potential that exists between the front and the
back of the human eye.
• We move our eyes constantly during our daily activities to keep our
line of sight pointed at a target of interest. In order to generate an
eye movement along any axis, there are three antagonistic pairs of
muscles which are attached to the globe of the eye.
• These sets of muscles function to move the eye horizontally (left
versus right), vertically (up versus down) and torsionally (clockwise
versus counter clockwise).
EOG
EOG
• There are four different types of conjugate eye movements. These
eye movements fall into two specific categories:
• Eye movements that function to stabilize the position of the eye in
space during head movements (Reflex eye movements).
• Eye movements that function to redirect the line of sight to follow a
moving target or to attend to a new target of interest (Voluntary eye
movements).
EOG
• In the 1920's, it was discovered that by placing electrodes on the skin
in the region of the eyes, one could record electrical activity which
changed in synchrony with movements of the eye in the head. It was
initially believed that these potentials reflected the action potentials
in the muscles that are responsible for moving the eyes in the orbit.
• However, it is now generally agreed that these electrical potentials
are generated by the permanent potential difference which exists
between the cornea and the ocular fundus (cornea-retinal potential,
10-30mV: the cornea being positive).
 EOG

This potential difference sets up an electrical field in

the tissues surrounding the eye.
As the eye rotates, the field vector rotates correspondingly. Therefore, eye
movements can be detected by placing electrodes on the skin in the area of
the head around the eyes. Vertical movements of the eyes are best measured
by placing the electrodes on the lids, while horizontal eye movements can be
best measured by placing the electrodes on the external canthi (the bone on
the side of the eye).
EOG
• Thoroughly clean the skin on the side of each eye (the area between
the eye and the hairline) and in the middle of the subject's forehead
with alcohol pads. Dry the cleansed surface with a gauze pad.
EOG
• Saccadic eye movements (saccades) are generated to move the eye
rapidly to a specific target of interest in visual space.

• The word saccade originated from the French term for "jerk", named
so to reflect the great speed at which these eye movements occur.
Eye movements are generally described in terms of the angle (in
degrees) that the eye has rotated. Saccades last for only a fraction of
a second and can reach speeds up to 900 deg/s.
EOG
• Eye movements are measured in degrees. However the signal that
you will record from the EOG electrodes will be in volts. In order
to determine the relationship between the amplitude of the
measured voltage and the actual eye movement generated by the
subject, it is necessary to construct a calibration curve.
EOG
EOG ARTIFACTS
• Artifacts are elements that appear in an experimental result, but are
not actually characteristic of the actual entity being studied. In
physiological signal acquisition, they are introduced from extraneous
sources such as electrical or mechanical interference, or incorrect
experimental protocol on the part of experimenter or subject.
• A) Blinks: The subject fixates on a nearby object, and then blinks
several times.
B) Taps: The subject fixates on a nearby object. This time a partner
moves the electrode leads around and taps gently on the electrodes
themselves.
EOG ARTIFACTS