Obtaining single stimulus evoked potentials with wavelet denoising

We present a method for the analysis of electroencephalograms (EEG). In particular, small signals due to stimulation, so-called evoked potentials (EPs), have to be detected in the background EEG. This is achieved by using a denoising implementation based on the wavelet decomposition. One recording of visual evoked potentials, and recordings of auditory evoked potentials from four subjects corresponding to different age,groups are analyzed. We find higher variability in older individuals. Moreover, since the EPs are identified at the single stimulus level (without need of ensemble averaging), this will allow the calculation of better resolved averages. Since the method is parameter free (i.e. it does not need to be adapted to the particular characteristics of each recording), implementations in clinical settings are imaginable. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.