A Signal Conditioning Approach for the Extraction of the Oscillatory Potential from the Electroretinogram

A SIGNAL CONDITIONING APPROACH FOR THE EXTRACTION OF THE OSCILLATORY POTENTIAL FROM THE ELECTRORETINOGRAM by Peter Haines Derr The oscillatory potential (OP), a signal component of the electroretinogram (ERG), was investigated to determine correlation of the OP and pathological conditions of the inner retina. Large transients characterize the ERG. Such transients stimulate a filter's natural response. Since these responses can co-occur with the OP, a distorted OP will be extracted. A proposed signal windowing and padding technique for conditioning the ERG signal has been implemented for the extraction of a minimally distorted OP. Windowing is used to capture only the OP period. The windowed ERG signal is then signal conditioned to generate initial values for the filter's state variables. Such correct initial conditions eliminate the perturbations created from filtering the windowed ERG. OPs were successfully extracted from a database of fifty human ERGs. The extracted OPs did not display any filter-induced oscillations and did provide some indication of the retina's pathology. A SIGNAL CONDITIONING APPROACH FOR THE EXTRACTION OF THE OSCILLATORY POTENTIAL FROM THE ELECTRORETINOGRAM by Peter Haines Derr A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering