Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

T I Brown

Publications and source records attributed to T I Brown.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

A new strategy for controlling the level of activation in artificially stimulated muscle.

Distributed stimulation of slow skeletal muscle has previously been used to produce smooth tetanic contractions at low stimulus rates. This involved distributed or interleaved stimulation of portions of the muscle with near equal tension contributions. Extending this to fast and mixed muscle encounters difficulties in getting and maintaining equal twitch responses for the portions. This need has now been circumvented by using distributed stimulation with unequal interpulse intervals. Described here is a microprocessor-based eight channel distributed muscle stimulator that can adjust stimulation timing to produce an optimally smooth tension over a range of stimulus rates even when the portions are unequal. This design is based on modeling results. Distributed stimulation experiments performed on skeletal muscle show that this method can be used to achieve smooth tension at physiological stimulus rates, which should reduce fatigue. This has important implications in functional neuromuscular stimulation (FNS) as well as in enabling experiments to be conducted to characterize the biomechanical behavior of partially activated fast and mixed muscle.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

Use of the bispectrum to analyse properties of the human electrocardiograph.

The bispectrum and bicoherence spectrum have been shown to be powerful techniques for identifying different types of nonlinear system responses. This paper presents an introduction to bispectral techniques applied to biomedical signals and examines the bispectral properties of the human electrocardiograph (ECG). The bispectrum proves to be an effective tool for representing and distinguishing different ECG response types. Bispectral ECG analysis is non-invasive and may prove to be a useful discriminant diagnostic.

Electrocardiography↗
PubMed1982

Forces generated at the thumb interphalangeal joint during imposed sinusoidal movements.

1. A method is described for driving the interphalangeal joint of the thumb through repeated sinusoidal flexion-extension movements, while immobilizing other joints of the wrist and hand.2. The joint met the sinusoidal movement with a force that fluctuated in an approximately sinusoidal manner. This paper is concerned with the relationship between the position and force sinusoids.3. When the thumb was relaxed the forces were small, but when the flexor pollicis longus was tetanically stimulated there was a large force change in response to each cycle of the movement. In either case, the maximum resistance to extension occurred during the later part of the extension movement, some 20 degrees -45 degrees in advance of maximum extension. A similar result was obtained when the subject exerted a maximal voluntary flexing force.4. The resistance to movement can conveniently be displayed as a stiffness vector, the amplitude of which is the force/displacement, and the phase is the angle by which the force sinusoid leads the position sinusoid.5. When the subject maintained a continuous, though sub-maximal, flexing effort the timing of the force fluctuations changed with changing frequency of movement in a characteristic way, and the stiffness vectors described a C-shaped or spiral path. With increasing frequency the stiffness vectors moved round this path in a clockwise direction.6. For descriptive purposes the resistance to movement can usefully be regarded as the vector sum of a reflex and a non-reflex component. Since the reflex pathway involves significant conduction delays, the reflex force can be expected to appear later in the cycle of a higher frequency movement, and give rise to a vector which moves round in a clockwise direction as the frequency increases. The non-reflex stiffness, however, changes much less with frequency.7. It is concluded that the size of the C-shaped or spiral vector path gives an indication of the strength of the reflex activity, while the position of the high frequency points gives an indication of the non-reflex resistance to the movement.

Action Potentials↗
PubMed1982

Electromyographic responses to imposed sinusoidal movement of the human thumb.

1. The interphalangeal joint of the thumb was driven through sinusoidal flexion-extension movements while electromyograms were recorded from over the flexor pollicis longus muscle. 2. When the subject relaxed his thumb the movement generated no detectable e.m.g. response. When, however, he exerted a voluntary flexing force electrical activity could be recorded from the flexor pollicis longus, the amplitude of which was modulated at the frequency of the movement. 3. As the driving frequency was increased, the maximal e.m.g. activity occurred progressively later in the cycle of movement; for frequencies above about 6 Hz the timing of the averaged e.m.g. was compatible with a reflex delay of 55-65 msec. 4. The frequency-phase plot was not, however, the perfect straight line that would arise from a simple and constant reflex delay. There were some consistent departures from linearity and some random variations. In either case, the timing of the e.m.g. and the timing of the reflex force (Brown, Rack & Ross, 1982a) changed together in ways that increased confidence in each of the measurements. 5. The amplitude of the e.m.g. signal was more deeply modulated by movements at 8-14 Hz than by higher or lower frequencies, and it was concluded that the stretch reflex responds particularly readily to signals in that frequency range.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

A range of different stretch reflex responses in the human thumb.

1. Imposed sinusoids were used to assess the resistance to movement at the thumb interphalangeal joint.2. The resistance to high-frequency movements (> 12 Hz) increased when the subject exerted a large voluntary flexing force; this increase was attributable to a greater non-reflex resistance of the contracting flexor muscles. This resistance was essentially ;visco-elastic', and the force was phase-advanced on joint position. At moderately large forces (up to half maximal), however, the resistance changed with changing frequency, and over a range 4-12 Hz the vectors which represented joint stiffness described the wide path that is characteristic of an active stretch reflex (Brown, Rack & Ross, 1982a). At frequencies between about 4 and 6 Hz the force was sometimes phase-delayed on position, and the joint exhibited a negative viscous stiffness. When the voluntary flexing force was very large the reflex contributed less to the resisting force, which was then phase-advanced on position at all frequencies of movement.3. Large amplitude movements did not generate correspondingly large reflex responses; as the amplitude of movement was increased, the reflex component of the resisting force became relatively smaller and the total resisting force was then phase-advanced on joint position at all frequencies.4. The reflex component of the resisting force (as indicated by the excursion of the joint stiffness vectors) varied from subject to subject and from time to time; the reflex usually became more active late in an experiment when the subject had exerted flexing forces against the imposed movement for some minutes. Extreme fatigue, however, diminished the amount of reflex force.5. In some subjects the joint-stiffness records indicated a particularly vigorous reflex response at 8-11 Hz, in contrast to a rather feeble response at 6 or 7 Hz. It is suggested that the reflex pathways then had a relatively low impedance to afferent signals that were modulated at 8-11 Hz, related perhaps to the firing patterns of the most recently recruited motoneurones.6. Under the conditions of these experiments, it appears that the stretch reflex has too small a gain to function as a very effective error-controlled position servo-mechanism.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Different types of tremor in the human thumb.

1. The upper limbs of normal subjects were immobilized in a way that allowed measurement of forces and movements at the thumb interphalangeal joint without significant movement elsewhere in the limb. 2. When the subject attempted to maintain a steady flexing force at the joint against a rigid stop, the actual force showed the irregular 8-11 Hz fluctuations characteristic of a 'physiological tremor'. This force fluctuation increased when the mean flexing force increased. 3. If the subject exerted his flexing force against a light complaint spring, there was an analogous irregular 8-11 Hz movement at the joint. 4. When, however, an extra inertial load was added to the terminal phalanx, flexion against a complaint spring was often accompanied by a different type of tremor. This was a more regular oscillation, of lower frequency (3-6 Hz), and of much larger amplitude. 5. The precise frequency and amplitude of this type of tremor depended on the characteristics of the added inertia and spring, in a way that could have been predicted from the responses of the joint to an imposed sinusoidal movement (Brown, Rack & Ross, 1982a). The movement appeared to arise from re-excitation within stretch reflex pathways. 6. The irregular 8-11 Hz tremor at this joint could not be attributed to reflex re-excitation, since the responses to sinusoidal movement indicated a stretch reflex whose timing would not support a movement at that frequency. It is, however, emphasized that other joints of the hand and fingers may behave in different ways.

Adult↗
PubMed1980

Avulsion fracture of the fibular sesamoid in association with dorsal dislocation of the metatarsophalangeal joint of the hallux: report of a case and review of the literature.

A case of avulsion fracture of the lateral sesamoid is reported in association with dislocation of themetatarsophalangeal joint of the hallux. The radiographic criteria to establish the diagnosis of fracture in sesamoid bones are outlined. Review of the literature reveals only one other reported case associated with a hallux dislocation, and in that case, the radiographic diagnosis was not clearly established.

Aged↗
PubMed1979

Failure of sliding nail-plate fixation in subcapital fractures of the femoral neck.

A retrospective study of 200 cases of subcapital fracture of the neck of the femur treated by sliding nail-plate fixation has been carried out. Failure of fixation within three months occurred in forty-two cases (21 per cent). These failures could, in part, be attributed to a combination of the severity of the fracture and various imperfections in technique. The age of the patient and the angle of the nail-plate had no significant effect on the result.

Age Factors↗