Averaging Evoked potentials

Definition of evoked potentials (EP):

• EP are the electrical manifestations of the

response of the nervous system to certain
external stimuli
• a response is in the appropriate cortical receptive
area
• it is time-locked to the evoking stimulus
 History
• In 1947, Dawson in England first revealed a short
electrical response elicited short electrical stimulus
applied to the ulnar nerve.
• It was recorded in the routine EEG (on the scalp)
prevailing in the contralateral central region in a patient
with myoclonic seizures.
• Dawson then examined a group of 14 healthy persons
and he found the same responses, but their amplitude was
very low.
 Principle of acquisition of EP
Stimulation of any sensory receptor tiny
electrical signal in the cerebral cortex.
1)Eps. 1 To 20uv micro volts few
2)EEG. Many microvolts 20uv to 200uv
3)EMG. Mili volts Mv
• But in eps this signal is overlapped by EEG or EMG
activity (as a noise).
 Principle of acquisition of EP
• What is registered in reality is a mixture of
evoked and spontaneous electrical activity.
More often, the spontaneous activity is of much
greater amplitude than the evoked activity. The
evoked activity is the “signal” we desire to record
and the background activity is “noise”.
• It is necessary to subtract evoked responses from
the random EEG activity (the „noise“).
• Methods:
– averaging
 Signal averaging introduced by Dawson, in 1954
• the stimulus and the start of averaging have to be
synchronized
• EP are time-locked to the evoking stimulus
• Since the brain´s spontaneous electrical activity is
essentially random with respect to the stimulus,
algebraic summing of the signal causes the
spontaneous activity to sum to zero,
• whereas the evoked activity will sum linearly
• the number of responses averaged:
– VEP – 100 - 200 or more EP
– BAEP – 1000 – 2000 – 4000 EP
 Averaging enhances a low-level signal

Bickford RG 1979