A comparison of three quantitative motor unit analysis algorithms

This study assessed the accuracy of three automatic motor unit analysis algorithms--multi-motor unit analysis, decomposition quantitative EMG, and EMGtools--on a set of real EMG signals whose true composition was determined by manual decomposition. All three algorithms correctly identified all the MUs in signals with up to 5 active MUs, and most of the MUs in signals with up to 10 active MUs. The algorithms accurately estimated MUAP amplitudes and firing rates, but they estimated duration less accurately because of baseline noise. These findings support the validity and utility of these algorithms.