Vulnerability of lower brachial myotomes in motor neurone disease: A clinical and single fibre EMG study

Michael Swash

doi:10.1016/0022-510X(80)90025-8

Research Article| Volume 47, ISSUE 1, P59-68, July 1980

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Vulnerability of lower brachial myotomes in motor neurone disease

A clinical and single fibre EMG study

Michael Swash
Michael Swash
Correspondence
Address for correspondence: Department of Neurology, The London Hospital, London E1 1BB, Great Britain.
Affiliations
Department of Neurology, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH U.S.A.
The London Hospital, London Great Britain
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DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-510X(80)90025-8

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Abstract

Single fibre EMG was used to study the motor unit fibre density in the right biceps brachii, extensor digitorum communis and first dorsal interosseous muscles of 15 patients with motor neurone disease, with different patterns of initial weakness. There was an inverse relationship between strength and fibre density in these muscles. Abnormalities were more marked in patients whose initial symptom was arm weakness, but collateral reinnervation was not as effective as in other neurogenic disorders. These findings are consistent with a hypothesis that motor neurone disease begins segmentally, or at a discrete level within the motor system, before becoming generalised. The single fibre EMG fibre density is a useful quantitative technique for sequential assessment of patients with neurogenic disorders.

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Article info

Publication history

Accepted: January 23, 1980

Received: December 4, 1979

Footnotes

☆This work was performed while the author was a Visiting International Scholar in the Department of Neurology of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, U.S.A., supported by a grant from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-510X(80)90025-8

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