Temporal muscle activation assessment by ultrasound imaging during flexor withdrawal reflex and voluntary contraction

Activating flexor reflexes by electrical stimulation has been used as a mechanism to initiate the swing phase or to enhance it for spinal cord injured patients. However, it is necessary to know their contraction dynamics in order to artificially induce them at the right moment of a walking cycle. This requires understanding the temporal activation pattern of both surface and deep muscles simultaneously. This study aimed at developing a system to measure and analyze the temporal activation of both surface and deep muscles during voluntary contraction and flexor reflexes (also called withdrawal reflexes) using ultrasound imaging. A set of experiments were done to verify the validity of the system, while exploring the temporal pattern of muscle activation during flexor reflexes. As a result, we were able to quantify the surface and deep muscle activity by measuring the muscle thickness, pennation angle and long-axis displacement, from the ultrasound images.