lway2002
05-24-2003, 04:37 PM
Even if one were as careful as one could be, does electrical stimulation damage muscles?
Wise Young
05-25-2003, 04:26 AM
High electrical currents of course will of course damage tissues. Most of the commercially available stimulators do not pass sufficient current to achieve current densities deep in the tissue to cause direct tissue damage. Very high current densities will burn skin, for example. It is important for that reason to use large surface areas of electrode contact when using high currents, to avoid very high current densities in any small area of skin.
Let us assume that the levels of electrical stimulation used are below the thresholds necessary for damaging skin or muscle but sufficient to depolarize nerves and muscles, to activate them. Will prolonged stimulation cause damage to muscles or nerves? I don't think so for the following reasons:
1. Millions of people have cardiac pacemakers. These are composed of electrodes that are inserted into heart muscle and the pace makers send electrical pulses to activate the sinoatrial node. These electrodes often work for many years without significant damage to the heart.
2. Hundreds of thousands of people have used surface functional electrical stimulation to activate muscles, sometimes daily for years. While there may have been some skin burns, I know of no evidence that FES causes muscle damage due to the electrical stimulation.
2. Thousands of people have used electrical stimulation of phrenic nerves, spinal cord stimulation, and implanted muscle stimulators. While there is some scarring of tissues around the electrode itself, these electrodes often continue to work for many years without adjustment.
If there is significant tissue damage due to the passage of electrical currents, we would have heard about it by now. I don't think that this is a significant risk. On the other hand, there has been several worrisome reports that electrical stimulation of an intensity that is sufficient to activate skin pain receptors may have deleterious effects on spinal reflexes. Most people with spinal cord injury, because they cannot feel the stimulation, turn up the stimulus to high current levels that most people with intact sensation would not be able to tolerate. This is because the currents activate skin pain receptors.
Just because a person cannot feel the stimulation due to the spinal cord injury does not mean that the spinal cord is not receive the information. We know that painful stimulus causes flexion reflexes. This interrupts locomotor patterns. A recent study from Jim Grau's lab in Texas A & M showed that noxious stimulation of the hindlimbs of rats can cause spinal cord learning (see abstract in SCI (Animal) Research Forum (http://carecure.org/forum/showpost.php?p=234451)). One worrisome possibility is that this may interfere with locomotor pattern generation.
Wise.
"does not mean that the spinal cord is not receive the information"
Which makes me wonder, if the damaged should be hit by alike e-onslaught, how becoming that is for them.
However I do not really wish to argue around there,
as even if it should be rather bad for the damaged in the spine,
I read some stuff is good for circulation and bone densitity.
So therefore I am ambiguous about such.
With the motor stuff, not that I got for sure all W.Y. means,
nor that I care at the moment if the other way around it is understood what I say,
I assume if ever the sequencer and the self were spinally translinked enough again for controls, new movement programs could be inprogrammed to an extent.
Therefore even if stuff before messed a bit up in movement programs,
these two centrals I assume would have enough command power,
that that does not seem that relevant, or at least not so far to me.
(What seemed to me far more relevant is the onslaught on natural systems with artificial e shite. And wondering, how bad it could get for the damaged.)
... not that I assume English actually has that expression .... ;-) http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif
Not that I thought much about it, but I assume if it were me, it would worry me that it'd mess massively into magic systems.
Apart from that I might seriously doubt that that is good for the damaged.
But as alike an old LSD brain magic vampire, among the first thoughts might be, if I had SCI, after primary healing time, to try to systematically go brain vampiring on sense enhancers with whomever does not object too much and seems half-way suited enough for it, for interlink capacities up.
With that I'd not need systems overloaded with artificial energies onslaugths till scarring.
But high sensitivity for magic interlinks with another's brain systems.
Even if as MBD I might be rather stupid in a lot, it might still reach till the realization with SCI, that for systems downwards from the injury I might alike need the other to program me for this, if wishing to get there better.
With that it can have top priority, that the other can get there well enough.
Basically options for the other to be magic central command for systems down from the injury I might not wish limited.
And even though I might regard the damaged region in the spine to be the most relevant,
and then arm controls (and breathing, should interlinks there have been severed),
legs might interest me still far enough, that I might not wish whatever to be in the way of someone, IF finding one for that, to run magic interlinks there should somewhen the damaged be far enough to handle that much.
Which they might never be, but I might first wish to find out a bit about various aspects.
(Alike with C.R., extremely simplified, I thought, right arm, yes, right leg, maybe, left arm, not now but I do not wish to judge if somewhen, left leg no.
This not meaning I got the magic potentials to inprogram for this.
Just rather simplified my impressions with magic methods.)
Anyway, I might find stuff like this more relevant, if it were my systems.
And seek basically not artificial energies but human magic energies inputs.
And there suited enough people for such, which might be rather difficult to find. Or at least here in Berlin I guess just few.
(Guess I'd try to find Paul, and hope that he can do a bit.
Although he might call it differing, to me he registered a white magic.
And for me astounding magically concerning thalamus. Which I regard a center of the sequencer. IMO to do with main movement sequences supervisions.
I might wonder, if Paul could be found and gotten to eventually, after a lot of other stuff, try to interlink the sequencer down again more.
Something I then might regard as more interesting, than nearly all artificial energies shite of Earth together.)
Anyway, differing people, differing aspired methods, and differing interests.
Humanity might be more boring, if we had the same attitudes about everything.