First publications
We are pleased to report the first publication related to SPiQE in Clinical Neurophysiology (July 2019 edition):
A follow-up article also became available in November 2019:
Most recently, we have published several papers focusing on specific clinical questions in ALS. All are available as Open Access articles:
Our group was involved in an opinion article outlining the complexity of biomarker development in ALS, emphasising the importance of enriched observational datasets:
SPiQE was also used to assess fasciculation counts in the description of two cases with benign fasciculation syndrome.
Results from the project have been presented at several recent international conferences, including the International MND Association Symposium (Perth, Australia, December 2019), the American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine annual meeting (Austin, Texas, USA, October 2019) and the European Network for the Cure of ALS conference (Tours, France, May 2019).
We have also presented updates of our work more locally, with James Bashford being named as winner of the ‘Best Departmental Talk’ at the King’s College London Neuroscience PhD Symposium (May 2019) .
In May 2020, James Bashford presented on online webinar as part of TMSi’s ‘Expert Talks’ series. This is entitled ‘Detecting motor unit pathophysiology in ALS using high-density surface EMG’ and provides a summary of our research group’s results so far. The webinar can be viewed here.
Cristina Cabassi has written a blog for the MND Research Blog, 'SPiQE – new analytical tool digs deeper into fasciculations'.
Many aspects of this project have been shaped and guided by the work of others. We hereby acknowledge and cite the most influential of these.
- Zwarts MJ, Stegeman DF. Multichannel surface EMG: basic aspects and clinical utility. Muscle Nerve. 2003;28(1):1-17.
- de Carvalho M, Swash M. Lower motor neuron dysfunction in ALS. Clin Neurophysiol. 2016;127(7):2670-81.
- Kleine BU, Stegeman DF, Schelhaas HJ, Zwarts MJ. Firing pattern of fasciculations in ALS: evidence for axonal and neuronal origin. Neurology. 2008;70(5):353-9.
- Sleutjes BT, Gligorijevic I, Montfoort I, van Doorn PA, Visser GH, Blok JH. Identifying fasciculation potentials in motor neuron disease: A matter of probability. Muscle Nerve. 2016;53(2):227-33.
- Neuwirth C, Barkhaus PE, Burkhardt C, Castro J, Czell D, de Carvalho M, et al. Tracking motor neuron loss in a set of six muscles in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using the Motor Unit Number Index (MUNIX): a 15-month longitudinal multicentre trial. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2015;86(11):1172-9.
- Chen M & Zhou P. A Novel Framework Based on FastICA for High Density Surface EMG Decomposition. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2016 Jan;24(1):117-27.
- Foreground Detection Analysis of Ultrasound Image Sequences Identifies Markers of Motor Neurone Disease across Diagnostically Relevant Skeletal Muscles. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2019 May;45(5):1164-1175.