The Effects of the Presence of Multiple Conduction Velocities in the Analysis of Electrically-Evoked Compound Action Potentials (eCAPs).

Abstract

New methods for the analysis of electrically-evoked compound action potentials (eCAPs) are described. Mammalian nerves tend to have broad multi-modal distributions of fibre diameters, which translates into a spread of conduction velocities. The method of velocity selective recording (VSR) is unable to distinguish between this spectral spread and the transfer function of the system. The concept of the velocity impulse function (VIF) is introduced as a tool to differentiate between these signal and system attributes. The new methods enable separate estimates of velocity spectral broadening and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to be obtained.