Arch Androl. 1993 May-Jun; 30(3): 171-6.

Tail beat frequency of human sperm: evaluated with sperm head fixation method and computer-assisted semen analysis.

Hong CY, Lee MF, Ou MC, Chao HT.

Institute of Traditional Medicine, National Yang-Ming Medical College, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.

Tail beat frequency (TBF) of individual sperm in 15 semen samples was evaluated with a sperm head fixation method (SHFM). Motility parameters of the semen samples were also measured with computer-assisted semen analysis (CASA). The TBF obtained from SHFM correlated best with beat cross-frequency obtained from CASA. The TBF measured soon after sperm head fixation also correlated well with total motility and rapid motility, but not with progress motility and critical motility measured with CASA. SHFM is a simple method for the study of tail beat frequency and the TBF of individual sperm is closely related to the overall motility in a semen sample.