Somatosensory Evoked Potential Changes During Muscle Testing

Abstract

Fifteen naive subjects with no known neurological problems were tested by means of manual muscle testing to determine two "strong" and one "weak" muscle on a limb contralateral to the stimulated side. Somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) were then recorded from contralateral median nerve stimulation while a naive tester tested the three previously identified muscles. In all subjects the baseline (no muscle test) and control "strong" muscle test recordings were comparable while the recording from the "weak" muscle test showed increased amplitudes in contralateral layer components. These findings suggest a neurologic basis for manual muscle testing.

Estimating the prevalence of use of kinesiology-style manual muscle testing: A survey of educators

“…Although the mechanism of action is disputed, previous research has established that there is a significant difference between ''strong'' muscles and ''weak'' muscles during a muscle test [3,[21][22][23][24][25]. Therefore, the objective of this study in not to assess if there is a difference, but instead, to estimate how widespread is the use of kMMT.…”

Expanding the Neurological Examination Using Functional Neurologic Assessment: Part Ii Neurologic Basis of Applied Kinesiology

“…This effect has been observed as muscle testing responses which vary from the predicted normal patterns (Leisman et al, 1989). This deviation from normal is thought to consist of alterations in patterns of facilitation and inhibition of muscles.…”

“…In an earlier paper, Leisman et al (1989) also identified differences in somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) recorded during the testing of conditionally facilitated versus conditionally inhibited muscles. SSEPs were recorded from the contralateral median nerves of fifteen subjects while three Int J Neurosci Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Technische Universiteit Eindhoven on 11/17/14 For personal use only.…”

“…A conditionally inhibited muscle is thought to be associated with an inhibitory CIS summation of the converging pathways to the alpha motor neuron controlling that muscle (Leisman, 1989). The segmental pathways are sensory pathways that are either of somatic or visceral origin and arise from a variety of sensory receptors in skin, joints, fasciae, viscera, and from various chemoreceptors.…”

Association of manual muscle tests and mechanical neck pain: Results from a prospective pilot study

“…The muscles in this study were tested according to the method outlined in the texts by Walther, Kendall, and Daniels and Worthingham (Kendall et al, 2005;Daniels and Worthingham, 2002;Walther, 2000). This method of MMT has been previously investigated in numerous reliability studies (Jepsen et al, 2004;Bohannon, 2001;Caruso and Leisman, 2000;Lawson and Calderon, 1997;Kelly et al, 1996;Hsieh and Phillips, 1990;Leisman et al, 1989;Wadsworth et al, 1987;Iddings et al, 1961).…”