Biomedizinische Technik. Biomedical engineering
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Automated EEG preprocessing during anaesthesia: new aspects using artificial neural networks.
The computer-aided detection of artefacts became an essential task with increasing automation of quantitative electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis during anaesthesiological applications. The different algorithms published so far required individual manual adjustment or have been based on limited decision criteria. In this study, we developed an artificial neural networks-(ANN-)aided method for automated detection of artefacts and EEG suppression periods. 72 hr EEG recorded before, during and after anaesthesia with propofol have been evaluated. ⋯ Related to examiner EEG evaluation, the average detection performance of the method was 72% sensitivity and 80% specificity for artefacts and 90% sensitivity and 92% specificity for EEG suppression. The improvement in signal-to-noise ratio with automated artefact processing was 1.39 times for the spectral edge frequency 95 (SEF95) and 1.89 times for the approximate entropy (ApEn). We conclude that ANN-aided preprocessing provide an useful tool for automated EEG evaluation in anaesthesiological applications.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
[Quantification of gender specific thermal sensory and pain threshold before and after laser needle stimulation].
Quantitative thermal sensory and pain threshold testing (QST) was performed in 29 adult healthy volunteers (mean age 24.2 +/- 2.7 years; range: 18-29 years; 20 females, 9 males) using the Thermal Sensory Analyser TSA-II (Medoc Advanced Medical Systems, Ramat Yishai, Israel, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) before and after laser needle acupuncture and placebo stimulation, respectively. Significant (p < or = 0,001; t-test) gender-specific differences were seen on cold pain threshold analysis. ⋯ However, a trend towards change in the median value of cold pain sensation after laser needle stimulation (p = 0.479; paired t-test; n.s.) was seen within the group of healthy females. The influence of stimulation of acupuncture points for chronic pain on the various parameters needs to be clarified in future studies.