Apparatus and method for distinguishing neural waveforms

Abstract

A neural waveform distinguishment apparatus includes: a neural waveform obtainment unit that obtains multiple neural waveforms in a pre-designated manner from neural signals sensed by way of at least one electrode; a preprocessing unit that obtains multiple gradient waveforms by calculating pointwise slopes in each of the neural waveforms; a feature extraction unit comprising an encoder ensemble composed of multiple encoders, which have a pattern estimation method learned beforehand and include different numbers of hidden layers, where the feature extraction unit obtains multiple codes as multiple features extracted by the encoders respectively from the gradient waveforms and concatenates the codes extracted by the encoders respectively to extract a feature ensemble for each of the gradient waveforms; and a clustering unit that distinguishes the neural waveforms corresponding respectively to the gradient waveforms by clustering the feature ensembles extracted respectively in correspondence to the gradient waveforms according to a pre-designated clustering technique.