Real-time eeg spectral analyzer

Abstract

An electroencephelograph (EEG) signal analysis system automatically determines and displays, on a real-time basis, the frequency content of spontaneous EEG signals from the brain. The analog EEG signals from a plurality of channels are sampled and converted to digitized EEG waveforms during a continuing sequence of epochs of predetermined time duration. The digitized EEG waveform for each epoch and channel is transformed from the time domain to the frequency domain to produce a frequency spectrum representing amplitude of the EEG signal as a function of frequency. The digital data is screened both prior and subsequent to the transformation to identify those epochs which contain artifacts. During each update period, the frequency spectra for each channel from the artifact-free epochs are averaged. The amplitudes of each averaged frequency spectrum for frequencies in each of four basic frequency bands are then summed. The result is an amplitude value for each of the four frequency bands at each channel. The four amplitude values are used to update a display which contains a graphical representation of the amplitude in each of the four bands in a different color. The amplitude values are also compared with previously recorded base line values, and an audible or visual warning indication is provided when predetermined variances from the base line values occur.