SBIR-STTR Award

We will develop an automated low-to-moderate cost "intelligent" evoked potential monitoring system for use in operating rooms and intensive care units. Evoked potential monitoring is desirable in operating rooms and intensive care units for the purpose of rapid detection of deleterious neurological changes that, if unrecognized and uncorrected, could lead to significant neurological deficits. At present, evoked potential monitoring is an extremely labor intensive procedure, requiring the continual presence of a technician and often a physician dedicated solely to real-time evoked potential recording and interpretation. This requirement adds substantially to the cost of OR monitoring, and limits the practicality of ICU monitoring. We will develop an evoked potential monitoring system that will overcome these limitations utilizing innovative computerized techniques, including parallel distributed processing (i. e. neural network) and dedicated low cost hardware.Awardee's statement of the potential commercial applications of the research:The EP monitoring system, not requiring operation by an expert neurophysiologist, would have substantial commercial applicability. The potential market would include all hospitals with neurological or neurosurgical subspecialty services.National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

Alacron proposes to develop an automated low-to-moderate cost "intelligent" evoked potential (EP) monitoring system for use in operating rooms and intensive care units. Evoked potential monitoring is desirable in operating rooms and intensive care units for the purpose of rapid detection of deleterious neurological changes that, if unrecognized and uncorrected, could lead to significant neurological deficits. At present, evoked potential monitoring is an extremely labor intensive procedure, requiring the continual presence of a technician and often a physician dedicated solely to real-time evoked potential recording and interpretation. This requirement adds substantially to the cost of OR monitoring, and limits the practicality of ICU monitoring. In Phase I, Alacron demonstrated the feasibility of automated EP monitoring using neural networks. Alacron proposes to develop an neural network based evoked potential monitoring system for the OR and ICU that will overcome these limitations

Thesaurus Terms:
artificial intelligence, biomedical automation, biomedical equipment development, clinical biomedical equipment, computer system design /evaluation, evoked potential, patient monitoring device biomarker, electrophysiology data collection, human data