Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology
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Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol · Oct 1994
Quantitative surface EMG of pericranial muscles in headache. A population study.
Quantitative EMG from the right frontal and both temporal muscles was studied in 547 adults randomly selected from the general population. The study was part of a multifaceted, epidemiological study of different headache disorders. Surface EMG was recorded by an observer blinded to the persons' history of headache, previous illness and mental state. ⋯ Moreover, amplitude values were decreased in both the temporal and the frontal muscles during maximal voluntary contraction indicating submaximal contraction during pain. The present study supports the importance of peripheral factors such as increased fatigability, morphological, and/or metabolic changes in the pathogenesis of tension-type headache. However, the diagnostic value of EMG in migraine and tension-type headache is limited.