title: Single muscle fiber discharges (insertional activity, end-plate potentials, positive sharp waves, and fibrillation potentials): a unifying proposal.
abstract: The exact origin and precise morphologic explanation of positive sharp waves (PSWs) are presently lacking. Observing normal needle electromyographic insertional activity reveals two types of waveforms: (1) biphasic negative/positive spikes, and (2) positive spikes followed by a small negative phase. In the end-plate region, it is possible to occasionally observe a biphasic end-plate spike transform into a monophasic positive end-plate waveform. It is postulated that this waveform is simply a form of intracellular recording for the biphasic end-plate spike or a form of extracellularly recorded but blocked single muscle fiber discharge. Similarly, the observed monophasic positive insertional activity may be an intracellularly recorded single muscle fiber discharge or a blocked extracellular discharge originating about the needle electrode. Applying this reasoning to PSWs suggests that they may also be an intracellular recording of a fibrillation potential, or needle-induced extracellular blocked local single muscle fiber discharge. This unifying concept is applied to various clinical situations purported to demonstrate "different" types of PSWs.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio 78284-7798, USA.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dumitru
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004576:Electromyography; D008564:Membrane Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D018485:Muscle Fibers, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology*; D009469:Neuromuscular Junction / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats