Detection of Bladder Contractions From the Activity of the External Urethral Sphincter in Rats Using Sparse Regression

IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2018 Aug;26(8):1636-1644. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2018.2854675. Epub 2018 Jul 9.

Abstract

Bladder overactivity and incontinence and dysfunction can be mitigated by electrical stimulation of the pudendal nerve applied at the onset of a bladder contraction. Thus, it is important to predict accurately both bladder pressure and the onset of bladder contractions. We propose a novel method for prediction of bladder pressure using a time-dependent spectrogram representation of external urethral sphincter electromyographic (EUS EMG) activity and a least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression model. There was a statistically significant improvement in prediction of bladder pressure compared with methods based on the firing rate of EUS EMG activity. This approach enabled prediction of the onset of bladder contractions with 91% specificity and 96% sensitivity and may be suitable for closed-loop control of bladder continence.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Animals
  • Computer Simulation
  • Electromyography
  • Female
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Muscle Contraction / physiology
  • Pudendal Nerve
  • Rats
  • Rats, Wistar
  • Urethra / physiology*
  • Urinary Bladder / physiology*
  • Urinary Incontinence / rehabilitation