Imaging the fasciculating motor unit

• Author(s): Swash, Michael ; Carvalho, Mamede
• Date: 2024
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/64646
• Origin: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
• Document Type: Journal article
• Language: English
• Contributor(s): Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto da ULisboa

Description

Fasciculations are a common early feature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), prompting a stream of research reports on their characteristic features based on clinical observation, surface EMG, concentric needle EMG, multipoint surface recordings, ultrasound detection within muscles, and now, MR imaging (Heskamp et al., 2024). This has revealed transient signal voids in pulsed gradient spin echo (PGSE) diffusion weighted (DW) imaging sequences, the voids representing fasciculation-associated movement of a motor unit. Fasciculations also occur, to a lesser extent in normal subjects, especially after intense exercise, and in the benign cramp/fasciculation syndrome (BFS).