< Program

Technology Update Session

Session 1B
Advances in SmartEP for Averaging, SNR Estimation and Audiovisual Integration
Rafael E. Delgado, PhD, Intelligent Hearing Systems Corp

Objectives: SmartEP offers advanced clinical and research tools for the acquisition of auditory and visual evoked potentials that provide enormous flexibility for stimulating, recording, and processing of data on the compact portable Duet clinical platform. The SmartEP software allows data to be acquired and stored in sweep blocks, providing options for different averaging, processing and statistical quality measures to be conducted. Various live averaging methods such as standard, weighted, Bayesian weighted, and Median averaging will be presented.  Demonstrations will include how the various averaging methods affect noise and how data can be reaveraged using any of these methods during live acquisition or offline.  Various signal-to-noise estimation methods including Fsp, Fmp and d-prime will also be presented.  Finally, the presentation will also include methods for integrating visual and auditory stimulation using a newly developed Visual Stimulation Control hardware module that provides accurate synchronization between auditory and visual stimuli.

Design: A qualitative comparison of the various averaging methods including standard, weighted, Bayesian weighted and Median, and the different response and noise estimation techniques, Fsp, Fmp and d-prime, will be conducted on sample auditory brainstem recordings acquired with different myogenic activity.

Results: Advantages and disadvantages of each averaging and quality estimation technique will be presented.

Conclusions: The acquisition, averaging and analysis options provided by SmartEP enable clinicians and researchers to evaluate the methods that are best suited for their particular needs and recording conditions.


Dr. Delgado received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Miami in 1993.  He is currently the Director of Research and Software Development for Intelligent Hearing System Corp. and an Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Miami.  He has published extensively and developed a large number of medical products for screening and testing of hearing and vision using evoked potentials and otoacoustic emissions.  He has also been the principal investigator in a large number of NIH SBIR grants for the development of these products.