Bioengineers at Work: November 2006

Bioengineers at Work: November 2006
http://www.udel.edu/PR/experts/muscles.html
I found this article while trying to find out more about muscles. It is about artificial stimulation of muscles that will hopefully one day lead to allowing a person with severe paralysis to stand-up and walk again. However, artificial stimulation makes a muscle more tired than normal, which means they are still a long way from curing paralysis. The article also talks about regular stimulation as opposed to varying stimulation, which they found works better, because it is closer to the body’s natural stimulation. "Patients can move their muscles much more forcefully for a longer period of time if their muscles are stimulated at varying rather than regular intervals," Binder-Macleod says. "This study is the first to show the effectiveness of a variable pulse pattern, and it's very exciting." After running tests on the effectiveness of different pulse patterns, they found that the most effective pulse pattern was a variable frequency train, which allowed the volunteers to move their muscles 25 to 35 percent more forcefully than consistent stimulation.