Abstract
Non-invasive measurement of uterine activity using electrohysterogram (EHG) surface electrodes has been attempted to monitor uterine contraction. This study aimed to computationally compare the performance of acquiring EHG signals using monopolar electrode and three types of Laplacian concentric ring electrodes (bipolar, quasi-bipolar and tri-polar). With the implementation of dipole band model and abdomen model, the performances of four electrodes in terms of the local sensitivity were quantified by potential attenuation. Furthermore, the effects of fat and muscle thickness on potential attenuation were evaluated using the bipolar and tri-polar electrodes with different radius. The results showed that all the four types of electrodes detected the simulated EHG signals with consistency. That the bipolar and tri-polar electrodes had greater attenuations than the others, and the shorter distance between the origin and location of dipole band at 20 dB attenuation, indicating that they had relatively better local sensitivity. In addition, ANOVA analysis showed that, for all the electrodes with different outer ring radius, the effects of fat and muscle on potential attenuation were significant (all p < 0.01). It is therefore concluded that the bipolar and tri-polar electrodes had higher local sensitivity than the others, indicating that they can be applied to detect EHG effectively.
Highlights
Non-invasive measurement of uterine activity using electrohysterogram (EHG) surface electrodes has been attempted to monitor uterine contraction
The aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of recording EHG signals in terms of local sensitivity from four types of electrodes based on a computational abdomen model and a dipole band model of uterine activity, and assess the effects of fat and muscle thickness on the recorded EHG signals
It can be seen that, the EHG peak amplitudes detected by the monopolar electrode were larger than the Laplacian electrodes, and all the peak amplitudes of EHG signals recorded by the four electrodes appeared at the same location of dipole band, suggesting the consistency of the changes of EHG amplitude between the four electrodes
Summary
Non-invasive measurement of uterine activity using electrohysterogram (EHG) surface electrodes has been attempted to monitor uterine contraction. This study aimed to computationally compare the performance of acquiring EHG signals using monopolar electrode and three types of Laplacian concentric ring electrodes (bipolar, quasi-bipolar and tri-polar). To better understand the mechanisms of signal propagation during uterine contraction, a multi-lead EHG recording in a 4-by-4 configuration has been performed by placing an array of Ag/AgCl monopolar cutaneous electrodes at abdominal surface[8], with the ground and reference electrodes attached on each side of the iliac crests. Three types of concentric ring electrodes (bipolar, quasi-bipolar and tri-polar) have been used to estimate the Laplacian of different bioelectric signal potentials, including the electrocardiogram (ECG)[15,16], electroencephalogram (EEG)[12,13] and the intestinal electrical activity[17]. To the best of our knowledge, the dipole band model has not been applied in a computational study to investigate the propagation of uterine activities
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