Characterization of changes in evoked potentials with applications to detection of possible impact acceleration injury

Transient and time varying changes in neuroelectric signals, such as evoked potentials (EPs), have been widely used to quantify neurological system properties. Animal experiments have demonstrated a strong correlation between latency changes in EPs and head/neck injuries resulting from impact acceleration. Accurate and immediate detection of similar changes in human EPs is crucial to quantify the effects of impact acceleration on the safety and functioning of naval personnel. The robustness of the adaptive latency change detection/estimation algorithm is examined here to establish its usefulness for analyzing noisy and time varying EPs. The long term objective is to establish an impact injury threshold for properly restrained personnel.