Signal analysis of electromyography of fasciculation by a two-pass system

Sustained trains of normal-looking spikes firing at rates from 10 to 25 spikes/sec were found in the surface electromyograms (EMG) of fasciculation induced by succinyl choline. A two-pass system is developed to detect the locations of spikes in these trains. During the first pass, trains of EMG spikes with periodic firing are detected using a short-time period detector. Prior knowledge of these trains such as firing pattern and shape of spike is thus found. In the second pass, the authors make use of this prior knowledge together with some fuzzy rules to detect the spikes which are missed in the first-pass due to their non-regular firing pattern, in order to enhance the performance of the detection.