DEVICE AND METHOD FOR EXAMINING A PHASE DISTRIBUTION USED TO DETERMINE A PATHOLOGICAL INTERACTION BETWEEN DIFFERENT AREAS OF THE BRAIN

摘要

A device for examining a pathological interaction between different brain areas, including a stimulation unit, which administers identical stimuli to a patient in a sequential manner, wherein the stimuli stimulate neurons of the patient in the brain areas to be examined, a measuring unit for recording measurement signals that represent a neural activity of the stimulated neurons, and a control and analysis unit for controlling the stimulation unit and for analyzing the measurement signals. The control and analysis unit transforms the measurement signals into the complex plane, examines the distribution of the phases of stimuli of the measurement signals absorbed by the measuring unit in response to the stimuli delivered to the patient, and determines the probability, with which the phase distribution differs from a uniform distribution, in order to ascertain whether a pathological interaction between the brain areas exists.

主权项

1. An apparatus for examining a pathological interaction between different brain areas, comprising:
a stimulation unit configured to successively administer identical stimuli to a patient, wherein the stimuli stimulate neurons of the patient in the brain areas to be examined; a measuring unit configured to record measured signals which reproduce a neural activity of the stimulated neurons; and a control and analysis unit configured to control the stimulation unit and analyze the measured signals, wherein the control and analysis unit is configured such that the control and analysis unit:
controls the stimulation to administer the stimuli to the patient; andtransforms the measured signals into a complex plane, examines the distribution of phases of the measured signals recorded by the measuring unit in the complex plane as a response to the stimuli administered to the patients and determines the probability with which a phase distribution differs from an equal distribution to determine whether a pathological interaction between the different brain areas is present.