Abstract
Muscular activity is investigated by analyzing the action potential generated by motor units. The multi-channel surface electromyogram (EMG) is used to analyze the conduction of muscle potential. It is recorded as the interference electric potential generated by motor units. The multi-channel surface EMG includes waveforms that conduct in several channels (conducting waves). We believe that it may be possible to analyze the change in surface muscle potential caused by muscular activity to examine the composition of conducting waves in the multi-channel surface EMG. Thus, we herein propose a new method by which to analyze the multi-channel surface EMG. The proposed method involves searching all conducting waves appearing quantitatively in the multi-channel surface EMG to calculate the similarity of the waveforms. Using this method, which is referred to as the multi-channel method for conducting waves (m-ch method), various types of data for each wave, including the conduction velocity and amplitude, over channels can be examined. Using the m-ch method, we analyzed the multi-channel surface EMG for subjects holding a load. Moreover, we examined the change in the composition of conducting waves. We believe that muscular activity can be analyzed based on conducting waves from the surface EMG.
