Scalene muscle activity during progressive inspiratory loading under pressure support ventilation in normal humans

We hypothesized that (1) in healthy humans subjected to intermittent positive pressure non-invasive ventilation, changes in the ventilator trigger sensitivity would be associated with increased scalene activity, (2) if properly processed – through inspiratory phase-locked averaging – surface electromyograms (EMG) of the scalenes would reliably detect and quantify this, (3) there would be a correlation between dyspnea and scalene EMG. Surface and intramuscular EMG activity of scalene muscles were measured in 10 subjects. They breathed quietly through a face mask for 10 min and then were connected to a mechanical ventilator. Recordings were performed during three 15-min epochs where the subjects breathed against an increasingly negative pressure trigger (−5%, −10% and −15% of maximal inspiratory pressure). With increasing values of the inspiratory trigger, inspiratory efforts, dyspnea and the scalene activity increased significantly. The scalene EMG activity level was correlated with the esophageal pressure time product and with dyspnea intensity. Inspiration-adjusted surface EMG averaging could be useful to detect small increases of the scalene muscles activity during mechanical ventilation.