Graduation Year

2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Physics

Major Professor

Wei Chen, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Jianjun Pan, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Ghanim Ullah, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Dominic D'Agostino, Ph.D.

Keywords

compound muscle action potential, electromyography, muscle fatigue, recurrence plot, sodium/potassium ATPase

Abstract

It has been shown that by applying a specially designed oscillating external electric field to a cell membrane that the membrane's sodium/potassium pumps can be synchronized to all work at the same rate. Then by slowly increasing the electric field's frequency the pumps' turnover rate can also be increased. By increasing the pumps' turnover rate, the sodium and potassium concentration gradients can be increased, this type of stimulation is called synchronization-modulation. There are three generations of the synchronization-modulation waveform each with different utilities. In particular, the third generation of synchronization-modulation has the ability to use the energy of the external electric field to recycle ADP into ATP.

Skeletal muscle cells that have become fatigued have depolarized membrane potentials. By applying synchronization-modulation for a long enough time to fatigued muscle cells the membrane potential can be fully recovered. Additionally, fatigued muscles have a reduced ability to produce a contractile force, and by applying synchronization-modulation to fatigued muscles in bullfrogs the time it takes to recover the force generating capacity is significantly reduced.

The surface electromyograph of the forearm was recorded and analyzed to discover that application of synchronization-modulation will reduce signs of fatigue. Applying synchronization-modulation to the forearm in humans will significantly reduce the recovery time of the compound action potential and the maximum voluntary contraction. Furthermore, synchronization-modulation applied to exercising muscles in human participants was able to delay the onset of fatigue in the forearm and bicep while performing static isolation contractions, and it was able to delay the onset of fatigue in biceps perform bicep curls.

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