An application of a muscle model to study electromyographic signals

A simulation program for research and teaching electromyography (EMG) has been developed. It has a great number of parameters that may be optionally changed in simulations of normal and diseased muscle. The simulator is user-friendly and fast and can actually be run without much help from the manual. It is easy to introduce new motor units (MU), to change MU and individual muscle fibre parameters, to insert an EMG electrode and to change its position. The model allows simulation of the most common pathological situations. The resulting signals are displayed in a conventional form. The generated EMG signals obtained with the three electrodes that have been used so far are reasonably similar to the signals obtained in real recordings. A few shortcomings in simulating, e.g. end plate zone and abnormal volume conduction characteristics do not seem to influence the principal results. The simulator can, therefore, be used in teaching and even for research.