Fatigue in mammalian skeletal muscle stimulated under computer control

Abstract

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is used to provide paralyzed human subjects with postural support and a limited range of movements. Problems encountered with FES include jerky movements from tension oscillations during stimulation and rapid muscle fatigue. In this paper, we report experiments on anesthetized cats that test a new, computer-controlled method of stimulation of the muscle nerve supply, distributed across several inputs, which reduces these problems. After 5 min of continuous, distributed stimulation of the medial gastrocnemius muscle at 6 pulses per second (pps) across 6 channels, tension fell to 55.9 ± 3.9% (SE) of its original value. In comparison, after 5 min of synch..