Open AccessSensor Anchoring Improves the Correlation Between Intramuscular Pressure and Muscle Tension in a Rabbit Model
Author(s) -
Shawn M. O’Connor,
Kenton R. Kaufman,
Samuel R. Ward,
Richard L. Lieber
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
annals of biomedical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1573-9686
pISSN - 0090-6964
DOI - 10.1007/s10439-020-02633-7
Subject(s) - isometric exercise , tibialis anterior muscle , contraction (grammar) , muscle contraction , perpendicular , tension (geology) , biomedical engineering , anatomy , chemistry , materials science , skeletal muscle , medicine , mathematics , geometry , ultimate tensile strength , composite material
Intramuscular pressure (IMP) shows promise for estimating individual muscle tension in vivo. However, previous pressure measurements show high variability during isometric contraction and poor correlation with tension during dynamic contraction. We hypothesized that enhanced sensor anchoring/orientation would improve tension estimation and thus developed a novel pressure sensor with a barbed housing. Sensors were inserted into the tibialis anterior (TA) of New Zealand White rabbits (N = 8) both parallel and perpendicular to the fiber orientation. We measured muscle stress and IMP during both isometric and dynamic contractions. Passive stress showed good agreement for both insertion directions across muscle lengths (ICC > 0.8). Active stress and IMP agreement were good (ICC = 0.87 ± 0.04) for perpendicular insertions but poor (ICC = 0.21 ± 0.22) for parallel insertions across both dynamic contractions and isometric contractions within the muscle's range of motion. These findings support use of IMP measurements to estimate muscle tension across a range of contraction conditions.