Abstract
Motor unit number estimation (MUNE) is an electrophysiological technique to assess the number of motor units innervating a single muscle or muscle group of interest. It may quantify axonal loss in any disease involving injury or degeneration of ventral horn cells or motor axons. Since MUNE has rarely been used in veterinary medicine, our study aimed to evaluate its potential role as an additional diagnostic and prognostic parameter in canine neurology. Therefore, we examined five healthy dogs and seven dogs suffering from diseases that necessitated general anesthesia for further diagnostics and treatment and that were not expected to interfere with the results of electrodiagnostic testing. By using the incremental technique to study MUNE in the cranial tibial muscle, we determined the number of motor units, the size of the compound muscle action potential, and the mean size of individual motor unit potentials of each dog as well as the mean values for each group. Moreover, we studied the correlation between these parameters. Taking the results into consideration, we addressed the difficulties and limitations of this technique. We, furthermore, pointed out possible fields of application for MUNE in canine neurology, and emphasized several aspects that future studies should focus on when applying MUNE to canine patients.
Highlights
Neurological diseases play an essential role in veterinary medicine
Various Motor unit number estimation (MUNE) methods have been developed throughout the last decades, all of them share the same concept based on the original McComas technique
The heterogeneous group consisted of seven randomly chosen dogs presented at the Department of Small Animal Medicine and Surgery, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany in order to undergo general anesthesia for further diagnostics and treatment of their diseases that were not expected to influence the results of electrodiagnostic testing
Summary
Electrodiagnostic testing is already established as an integral part of the clinical evaluation of neurological canine patients. These examinations, such as electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies (NCS), are performed routinely during the course of the diagnostic workup [1]. Motor unit number estimation (MUNE), has rarely been applied in veterinary science. MUNE is an electrophysiological method for quantification of the number of motor units or axons innervating a single muscle or muscle group [4]. The original MUNE method, described by McComas et al, is the incremental stimulation technique [5]. Various MUNE methods have been developed throughout the last decades, all of them share the same concept based on the original McComas technique. Assuming that the increase of the amplitude of the compound muscle action potential (CMAP)
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