Correlation between muscle electrical impedance data and standard neurophysiologic parameters after experimental neurogenic injury

Previous work has shown that electrical impedance measurements of muscle can assist in quantifying the degree of muscle atrophy resulting from neuronal injury, with impedance values correlating strongly with standard clinical parameters. However, the relationship between such data and neurophysiologic measurements is unexplored. In this study, 24 Wistar rats underwent sciatic crush, with measurement of the 2-1000 kHz impedance spectrum, standard electrophysiological measures, including nerve conduction studies, needle electromyography, and motor unit number estimation (MUNE) before and after sciatic crush, with animals assessed weekly for 4 weeks post-injury. All electrical impedance values, including a group of 'collapsed' variables, in which the spectral characteristics were reduced to single values, showed reductions as high as 47.2% after sciatic crush, paralleling and correlating with changes in compound motor action potential amplitude, conduction velocity and most closely to MUNE, but not to the presence of fibrillation potentials observed on needle electromyography. These results support the concept that localized impedance measurements can serve as surrogate makers of nerve injury; these measurements may be especially useful in assessing nerve injury impacting proximal or axial muscles where standard quantitative neurophysiologic methods such as nerve conduction or MUNE cannot be readily performed.