Ulnar nerve at the elbow – normative nerve conduction study

INTRODUCTION: A goal of our work was to perform nerve conduction studies (NCSs) of the ulnar nerve focused on the nerve conduction across the elbow on a sufficiently large cohort of healthy subjects in order to generate reliable reference data. METHODS: We examined the ulnar nerve in a position with the elbow flexion of 90(o) from horizontal. Motor response was recorded from the abductor digiti minimi muscle (ADM) and the first dorsal interosseous muscle (FDI). RESULTS: In our sample of 227 healthy volunteers we have examined 380 upper arms with the following results: amplitude (Amp)-CMAP(wrist) for ADM 9.6 ± 2.3 mV, MNCV at the forearm 60.4 ± 5.2 m/s, MNCV across the elbow 57.1 ± 5.9 m/s. DISCUSSION: Our study showed that motor NCSs of the ulnar nerve above elbow (AE) and below elbow (BE) in a sufficiently large cohort using methodology recommended by AANEM gave results well comparable for registration from FDI and ADM.