ELECTROCARDIOGRAM(ECG) MEASUREMENT

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the experiment is to help students understand the electrical activity phenomenon that occurs during the cardiac pumping cycle. The periodically varying potentialwaveform related to the electrical activity is called the electrocardiogram (ECG). The ECG measurement module can be used to detect 6 different lead ECG signals. Through the experiment, the students will know how to design the Wilson network and the isolation circuit. PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE Human hearts are corn posed of myocardium. When action potential occurs, it will lead to myocardial contraction. Thus, the heart can pump blood into body all around. Current resulting from the action potential will spread from the heart to the whole body. Diverse current distributions are found in different parts of the body. Therefore, that signal can be measured with surface electrodes. The measured waveform is called the electrocardiogram (ECG). Different potential waveforms and amplitudes can be recorded from different electrodes or lead. Based on the cardiac potential axis, there are six standard leads, including Lead I , Lead II, LeadIII, oVq, aV1 and aVr. The right foot is usually considered as a reference ground, due to a minute change in its potential amplitude and its location far away from the heart. The heart's pumping is not fully controlled by automatic nervous system. The action source of the heart originates from the specialized cells in Senatorial node that work like a pacemaker. The rhythmic action potential from the Senatorial node will spread all around the atria, resulting in the atrial contraction. The myocardial contraction of the atria will pump the blood into the ventricles. The action potential will be conduct to all parts of the ventricles through Atrio ventricular node between the ventricle and atrium and Purkinje fibers. This leads to the ventricular contraction and pump the blood from the ventricles into the arteries.

cardiac potential axes corresponding to different ECG leads.

when the nervous impulse passes through the atrium and ventricle, the current will spread to the cardiac tissue and induce the generation of the myocardial action potential. some part of the action potential will reflect on the body surface. As a result, if electrodes are properly placed on the body surface areas relative to the heart, a time-varying potential reflecting the full cardiac contraction and dilatation durations can be detected, which is the so-called ECG.

Block Diagram of ECG Measurement Circuit in extremity lead measurements as described in the above section, the right foot is always used as reference ground. Through the combination of the right arm, left arm and left foot, six ECG lead signals that include Lead l, Lead ll, Lead lll, dVp, aV1 and aVr can be measured. For consideration of hardware cost, a circuit with multiple-lead one-channel is designed in most cases. ln general, the frequency range is from 0.1 to 100 Hz and the maximum amplitude is 1 mV in a normal EGG signal. Further, to avoid the electrical shock caused by leakage from the power supply or measuring instrument, the isolation concept must be incorporated in designing a circuit for ECG detection.

Block diagram of ECG measurement circuit. Figure shows the block diagram of ECG measurement circuit. ln ECG measurement, the surface electrodes (or electrode clamps) placed on four extremities are used to pick up very weak and time-varying potential. The lead selector circuit contains a voltage follower circuit to match impedance between the electrode and skin, which w( improve sensitivity in ECG detection. A instrumentation amplifier with a gain of 100 is applied as the preamplifier for picking up the unipolar signal from the ECG vectors. The isolation circuit designed here is intended to isolate the signal and line power source, and can be implemented by either an optical or voltagetransformed method. The bandwidth of the band-pass filer is from 0.1 to 100 Hz, and the gain amplifier can magnify, with an amplification factor of 10, the signal that has been through the filter. When the signal has been 60 Hz band-reject filtered, an oscilloscope can be used to display the processed signal.

ELECTROMYOGRAM(EMG) MEASUREMENT

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the experiment is to help students gain an insiglil into the alterations of electrical potential during different muscular activities, including the conscious controls and triggering events of muscle. Furthermore, this trial will help students understand the change in the muscle force produced during contraction' the isotonic or the isometric

PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE Skeletal muscle provides us with the support of our body weight The skeletal muscle can rotate by means of a joint, and the striated muscle directly attaches to a bone directly or by a tendon. Two or multiple groups of skeletal muscle antagonize each other. lt means that when one contracts, the other(s) elongates. The skeletal muscle is composed of poly-nucleus cells, and bundles of muscle fiber are neatly arranged. Action potential propagates from the motor nerye to the muscle fiber regulated by the nerve. The propagation will result in an instant increase in calcium ion concentration in the muscle cell, and launch the molecular mechanism related to the muscular contraction. The basic component of the skeletal muscle is the motor unit, which can be activated consciously. A number of the motor units construct a so-called muscle fiber. When a single motor unit (SMU) is activated by stimulation, a potential waveform with an amplitude ol 20-2000 pV, a discharge frqluency of 6-30 Hz, and an interval of 3-10 ms is observed. Thus, contraction of muscle fibers leads to a potential signal with larger amplitude and higher frequency that is called the electromyogram (EMG). The motor unit regulates the fiber of the skeletal muscle. Therefore, when a motor nerve is excited, all the fibers controlled by the motor unit will be activated. This process includes the production of the action potential and the contraction of the muscle fibers. A piece of muscle may be probably regulated by hundreds of motor units. The nervous system makes an attempt to control different degrees of muscle activities by means of stimulating diverse numbers of motor units. The more the motor units are excited, the more the muscle fibers are activated. So, the number of the
excited motor units modulates the extent of the muscle activity. Similar to ECG, EMG can be recorded from body surface with electrodes. Consciously muscular activity usually produces great variations in EMG signals. EMG signal consists of.several irregular waveforms, which is reasonably different from ECG. When muscle is in the isotonic contraction state, it has to maintain a constant tone and consume energy. Simultaneously, the muscle length will be changed. As the muscle length alters, a load on the muscle and a distance moved by the muscle constitutes an effective work. When the muscle is in the isometric contraction condition, a minimal or almost zero shortening in the muscle length occurs, but an immense tone is generated. Although the isometric contraction does not cause body movement, it definitely consumes energy and in the end the energy will

transfer to the forms of heat and tone. Due to no displacement shift in the isometric contraction of the muscle, there is no real work exerted in the action.

CIRCUIT PRINCIPLE

Block Diagram of EMG Measurement Circuit