Effect of muscle fatigue on the cortical-muscle network: A combined electroencephalogram and electromyogram study

Electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyogram (EMG) signals during motion control reflect the interaction between the cortex and muscle. Therefore, dynamic information regarding the cortical-muscle system is of significance for the evaluation of muscle fatigue. We treated the cortex and muscle as a whole system and then applied graph theory and symbolic transfer entropy to establish an effective cortical-muscle network in the beta band (12-30 Hz) and the gamma band (30-45 Hz). Ten healthy volunteers were recruited to participate in the isometric contraction at the level of 30% maximal voluntary contraction. Pre- and post-fatigue EEG and EMG data were recorded. According to the Borg scale, only data with an index greater than 14<19 were selected as fatigue data. The results show that after muscle fatigue: (1) the decrease in the force-generating capacity leads to an increase in STE of the cortical-muscle system; (2) increases of dynamic forces in fatigue leads to a shift from the beta band to gamma band in the activity of the cortical-muscle network; (3) the areas of the frontal and parietal lobes involved in muscle activation within the ipsilateral hemibrain have a compensatory role. Classification based on support vector machine algorithm showed that the accuracy is improved compared to the brain network. These results illustrate the regulation mechanism of the cortical-muscle system during the development of muscle fatigue, and reveal the great potential of the cortical-muscle network in analyzing motor tasks.