Electrical impedance myography: transitioning from human to animal studies. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • OBJECTIVE: To determine the feasibility of performing electrical impedance myography (EIM) in rats. METHODS: EIM was performed on the hamstring muscles of 6 healthy adult rats with applied frequencies of 2-300 kHz. Studies were performed over a 6-week period, with 3 rats having recordings made from the skin (surface EIM) and 3 with recordings directly from the muscle (direct-muscle EIM). In addition, sciatic nerve crush was performed on one rat and comparisons made pre- and post-injury. Reactance and resistance were measured and the primary outcome variable, the phase angle (theta), calculated. RESULTS: EIM patterns in the rat hamstring muscles were qualitatively similar to those observed in human subjects. This held true for both surface and direct-muscle recordings, although direct-muscle data appeared less repeatable. Sciatic nerve crush data in the single rat showed a dramatic reduction in phase and a relative loss of frequency-dependence. CONCLUSIONS: EIM data similar to that obtained from human subjects can be acquired from rat muscles with surface recordings proving more consistent and easier to obtain than direct-muscle recordings. Changes seen with sciatic nerve crush mirror those seen in patients with neurogenic injury. SIGNIFICANCE: These results support the possibility of performing EIM on rat models of neuromuscular disease.

publication date

  • June 30, 2006

Research

keywords

  • Electric Impedance
  • Muscle, Skeletal
  • Myography

Identity

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 33746260320

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1016/j.clinph.2006.03.024

PubMed ID

  • 16807097

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 117

issue

  • 8