electromyography, the graphing and study of the electrical characteristics of muscles. Resting muscle is normally electrically silent. However, when it is active, as during contraction or stimulation, an electrical current is generated, and the successive action potentials (impulses) can be registered on a cathode-ray oscilloscope screen in the form of continuous wavelike tracings. The visual recording, called an electromyogram, or EMG, is customarily accompanied by auditory monitoring.
Electromyography is used primarily to differentiate diseases of the muscles from diseases of the peripheral nerves. A needle electrode is inserted into the muscle, and the electrical activity of the muscle is measured. Records of muscle electrical activity are usually obtained during muscle relaxation, during voluntary contraction when needle electrodes are inserted into the muscle under study, and during muscle activity evoked by the stimulation of its nerve. The response to electrical stimulation allows the physician to determine the origin of muscle weakness.
Weakness or wasting of muscle is generally caused either by impairment of the nerves supplying it (neuropathic disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and polio) or by intrinsic muscle impairment or primary muscle disease (myopathy). In neuropathic disorders, there is usually increased spontaneous activity during muscle relaxation (fibrillation and fasciculation), together with reduced, altered, or absent normal muscle action potentials. In myopathies, there is frequently a reduction in the amplitude or duration of the muscle action potentials and an increase in the complexity of their wave form.