Simultaneous NMR and EMG study adds an extra dimension in correlation between the electrical activity of a muscle and the biochemical events that occur during exercise, fatigue and recovery. However some of the potential difficulties involved in the simultaneous study include RF noise interference, transmission losses and movement artifact. We have successfully evaluated these problems associated with simultaneous 31P-NMR spectroscopy and EMG study on human calf muscle at 2T in a whole body magnet. The effect of RF noise and magnetic field on EMG signal was evaluated by first acquiring EMG signal outside of the magnet performing voluntary wrist contraction (for simplicity in administration) using a low intensity protocol. After performing similar exercise inside the magnet, a power spectrum analysis was done which indicated a high frequency shift in the median frequency implying the presence of high frequency noise component. Effect of transmission loss was observed using normal and twisted shielded cables. Using a low pass and band pass filter circuits, high frequency RF noise and low frequency electromagnetically induced emf artifact were eliminated. Transmission losses were minimized by the use of shielded twisted cables.
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