Title: System Level Framework for Assessing the Accuracy of Neonatal EEG Acquisition,
Abstract: Significant research has been conducted in recent years to design low-cost
alternatives to the current EEG monitoring systems used in healthcare
facilities. Testing such systems on a vulnerable population such as newborns is
complicated due to ethical and regulatory considerations that slow down the
technical development. This paper presents and validates a method for
quantifying the accuracy of neonatal EEG acquisition systems and electrode
technologies via clinical data simulations that do not require neonatal
participants. The proposed method uses an extensive neonatal EEG database to
simulate analogue signals, which are subsequently passed through electrical
models of the skin-electrode interface, which are developed using wet and dry
EEG electrode designs. The signal losses in the system are quantified at each
stage of the acquisition process for electrode and acquisition board losses.
SNR, correlation and noise values were calculated. The results verify that
low-cost EEG acquisition systems are capable of obtaining clinical grade EEG.
Although dry electrodes result in a significant increase in the skin-electrode
impedance, accurate EEG recordings are still achievable.