A DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING EVOKED-POTENTIAL MACHINE

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE EVOKED-POTENTIAL MACHINES GENERALLY RELYON ENSEMBLE AVERAGING TO SEPARATE THE EVOKED-POTENTIAL WAVEFORMS FROM ACCOMPANYING NOISE. THIS TECHNOLOGY IMPOSES LIMITS ON THE UTILITY OF THESE SYSTEMS IN "HIGH-NOISE" ENVIRONMENTS AND WHEN RAPID RESOLUTION OF POTENTIALLY CHANGEABLE EVOKED POTENTIALS IS CLINICALLY ESSENTIAL, SUCH AS IN THE OPERATING ROOM OR THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. CORTEKS, INC. PROPOSES THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN EVOKED-POTENTIAL MACHINE WHICH WILL UTILIZE A COMBINATION OFDIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING TECHNIQUES TO RESOLVE EVOKED-POTENTIAL WAVEFORMS MORE RAPIDLY AND WITH SUBSTANTIALLY LESS NOISE CONTAMINATION THAN CURRENTLY AVAILABLE COMMERCIAL SYSTEMS. DURING PHASE I, CORTEKS, INC. WILL IMPLEMENT AND CRITICALLY EVALUATE A REAL-TIME PROTOTYPE. IN PHASE II, THE ARRAY PROCESSOR USED IN THE PHASE I PROTOTYPE WILL BE REPLACED WITH A SUPERIOR AND LOWER COST DEVICE AND AUTOMATIC OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHMS TO SIMPLIFY USE.