MM-MRE: a new technique to quantify individual muscle forces during isometric tasks of the wrist using MR elastography

Non-invasive in-vivo measurement of individual muscle force is limited by the infeasibility of placing force sensing elements in series with the musculo-tendon structures. While different methods based either on shear wave elastography or electromyography have been recently proposed to non-invasively estimate individual muscle forces, they can only be used to quantify forces in a limited set of superficial muscles. As such, they are not suitable to study the neuromuscular control of movements that require coordinated action of multiple muscles. In this work, we present multi-muscle magnetic resonance elastography (MM-MRE), a new technique capable of quantifying force for each muscle in the forearm, thus enabling the study of the neuromuscular control of wrist movements. To quantify individual muscle force, MM-MRE integrates measurements of joint torque provided by an MRI-compatible instrumented handle with muscle-specific measurements of shear wave speed obtained via MRE into a forward dynamic muscle force estimator based on a realistic musculoskeletal model of the forearm. A single-subject pilot experiment demonstrates the possibility of obtaining measurements from individual muscles and establishes that MM-MRE has sufficient sensitivity to detect changes in the muscle specific measurement of shear-wave speed following the application of isometric flexion and extension torques with self-selected intensity.