Brain-Computer Interfacing: A method to detect pain signals in the brain of a patient under operation

This is a study of the brain waves of a subject when he or she goes through any medical procedures. When a person undergoes any operation or surgical intervention for his health the surgeon will provide A paralyzing agent and a numbing agent which serves the purpose of paralyzing the specific body part where the operation is to be done so that the patient does not move his/her body during the operation, and the numbing agent is given at that specific region where the operation is to take place. Sometimes the paralyzing agent might work, and the numbing agent might not work. In this case, the patient needs to undergo the operation with experiencing the pain but will not be able to convey his pain as subject is paralyzed. So, the EEG (electro-encephalograph) device is fitted to the head of the patient immediately after both the agents are given to the patient before the commencement of the operation. Based on the study of the signals coming from the patient's brain we try to understand whether the patient is going through any pain or not. The captured signals are amplified to a range where calculations can be performed. From the known information about the pain signal, the remaining signals are filtered out using a narrow bandpass Butterworth filter of second order and this output is sent to a triggering circuit. This pain signal represents a logic high in the circuit which can be used to obtain the required output.