Analisi quantitativa dei potenziali di unita’ motoria dei muscoli scheletrici nel cavallo e nel pony

Electromyographic examination (EMG) is an important diagnostic technique for evaluating the electrical activity of the motor unit. The knowledge of the results in real time, without manual trigger or delay line, may be essential especially in uncooperative and not sedated animals. The EMG examination was performed in splenius, trapezius and triceps muscles, using concentric needle electrodes. The signal has been acquired and analysed online with dedicated software that proposes a grouping of the motor unit potentials (MUPs). For each subset of simple or polyphasic MUPs, the program analysed duration, amplitude, area/amplitude ratio and firing rate. The main advantages of this method are that it is an online method, which permits an automatic expression of more than one MUP, it is fast to be used routinely, it does not require special electrodes and it is reproducible. The aim of our study was to create a normative data base that can be used for electromyographic evaluation of muscular function in clinical studies and to compare the MUPs parameters in the two groups of animals, characterized by a different muscular mass