Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation acutely impacts motor unit firing activity during isometric contractions

A low intensity electrical current delivered transcutaneously at a high frequency over a muscle can acutely recruit motor units in a physiological order by activating peripheral sensory pathways. This method has been used in patients to reduce tremor or supplement motor function, leading to the development of therapies and products. We aimed to better understand how the stimulation of the median nerve, the contralateral first dorsal interosseus muscle (FDI), and the combination of these two paradigms impact the motor unit activity from the FDI muscle. We identified and tracked the same motor units across the conditions and compared the electromyographic amplitude, motor unit discharge rates, and the degree of correlation between fast and slow oscillations of motor unit discharge rates. We found that the stimulation of the FDI muscle can acutely increase the electromyographic amplitude of the homonymous muscle on the contralateral side (F = 20.4; p < 0.001) while the discharge rate of motor units did not differ between the control and the stimulation condition (F = 0.2; p = 0.806). We did not observe any significant effect of the stimulation on the ratio of pairs of motor units with a significant correlation, showing that the stimulation barely impacted the distribution of correlated inputs to the pool of motor units. We did not observe short-term effects of the stimulation once it was discontinued. Overall, these results showed that the specific stimulation of peripheral sensory pathways can acutely impact motor unit firing activity without disturbing the neural control of force. New & Noteworthy We identified and tracked the same motor units across stimulation and control conditions using high-density electromyography. We found that the specific stimulation of peripherial sensory pathways can acutely impact motor unit firing activity, likely due to the recruitment of additional motor units. At the same time, the degree of correlation between fast and slow oscillations of motor unit discharge rates was stable, limiting the disturbance of the neural control of force.