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Motor unit number estimation of facial muscles using the M Scan‐Fit method
Author(s) -
Habeych Miguel E.,
Trinh Terry,
Issar Tushar,
Kwai Natalie C.G.,
Krishnan Arun V.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
muscle and nerve
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.025
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 1097-4598
pISSN - 0148-639X
DOI - 10.1002/mus.27010
Subject(s) - intraclass correlation , facial muscles , facial nerve , nuclear medicine , anatomy , medicine , correlation , psychology , mathematics , psychometrics , geometry , clinical psychology
M Scan‐Fit, an automated method for motor unit number estimation (MUNE), was assessed in muscles innervated by the facial nerve. Methods Healthy volunteers were recruited. M Scans were recorded twice from nasalis and depressor anguli oris (DAO) muscles, and then fitted to a probabilistic model. Results Twenty‐one subjects were evaluated; 38% were females and 62% were males, with a mean age of 34.71 years. The average number of MUs was 38.57 on both testing occasions ( t ≤ 0.0001; P = 1.0) for the nasalis. For the DAO, results were 20.62 MUs for the first and 23.48 for the second ( t = −2.12; P = .04). Pearson's interrater correlation coefficients were 0.96 ( P < .0001) for nasalis and 0.87 ( P ≤ .01) for DAO. Intraclass correlation coefficients were 0.88 ( P ≤ .01) for nasalis and 0.39 ( P = .37) for DAO. Discussion M Scan‐Fit MUNE is an automated, accurate, reliable method of estimating MU number and size from facial muscles.