Tomiharu Yamaguchi

and 3 more

The recently proposed short-time impedance spectroscopy (short-time IS) measures impedance spectra with high temporal resolution using nonsinusoidal oscillator signals. This study applied the short-time IS system to biological tissue impedance measurement during muscle activity. The system measured the temporal impedance spectrum of the human forearm and analyzed impedance changes during wrist motion. The IS system captured highly reproducible, frequency-dependent impedance changes when the wrist moved up and down. The forearm's impedance response during wrist motion was visualized with a high temporal resolution of about 0.5 ms, displaying the impedance magnitude and phase angle change as a color map. The short-time IS system's mode-switching mechanism enables rapid impedance measurement at 40 frequencies, forming smooth Cole-Cole plots with high temporal resolution. While muscle tissue impedance measurement is typically affected by skin tissue's high impedance, we found that difference and differential Cole-Cole plots reduced skin impedance effects and produced a characteristic curve corresponding to wrist motion, even with two-terminal measurement. We theoretically confirmed that the difference and differential Cole-Cole plots represent a reasonable muscle tissue impedance variation. This characteristic curve is compatible with machine learning techniques like pattern recognition. We anticipate that the IS system and visualization method will be beneficial for myoelectric control in prosthetic hands and noninvasive muscle disease diagnosis.