Serial fasciculation measurements in motor neurone disease
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Sequential high-density surface EMG recordings in motor neurone disease: fasciculations as a biomarker of motor neurone health.
IRAS ID
216262
Contact name
Chris Shaw
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 3 days
Research summary
Patients with motor neurone disease typically experience relentless motor decline and die within three years of symptom onset from respiratory muscle weakness. There are currently no effective therapies and the discovery of novel therapies is hampered by the lack of a sensitive disease biomarker. Consequently, there is a huge drive to discover novel biomarkers, which can reliably track disease progression over time. These can then be incorporated into clinical drug trials to expedite effective drug discovery.
Muscle fasciculations represent the hyperexcitability of diseased motor neurons and are almost universally present from the early stages of MND. We predict that the site, frequency and shape of fasciculations might provide a sensitive measure of disease progression in an individual.
In order to calibrate this technique, we will conduct a 12-month longitudinal study, recruiting 24 patients from the King’s College Hospital Motor Nerve Clinic, comprising a mixture of patients with MND and those with benign fasciculation syndrome. Patients in this latter group have fasciculations but do not develop weakness and have normal lifespans. They are therefore an optimal control group. At each visit, we will take resting HDSEMG recordings from all four limbs and perform standard clinical measures of disease progression. We will also monitor the decline in motor unit number using a newly validated neurophysiological technique, called Motor Unit Number Index (MUNIX).
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EM/0221
Date of REC Opinion
28 Jun 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion