Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Introduction to Biosignals

Biosignal is a term that summarizes all kinds of signals that can be (continually) measured and monitored from biological design.  The term biosignal is often used to mean bio-electrical signal but in fact, biosignal refers to both electrical and non-electrical signals.

They are usually taken to be (changes in) electric currents produced by the sum of electric potential differences across a specialized tissue, organ or cell system like the nervous system.

In the pulse band project, the team will mostly work with EKG/ECG - Electrocardiogram to measure heart rate via the pulse sensor. Also, Galvanic Skin Response is important to detect the sweating produced by hypoglycemia.

Examples of bio-electrical signals:

  • Electroencephalogam (EEG)
Figure 1: imaging brain while performing a cognitive task
  • Magnetoencephalogram (MEG)
Figure 2: mapping brain activity by recording magnetic fields produced by electrical currents in brain
  • Galvanic Skin Response (GSR)
Figure 3: GSR Through Lego NXT

  • Electrocardiogram (ECG)
ECG
Figure 4: ECG used by diagnosis of heart disease
  • Electromyogram (EMG)
Figure 5: EMG used for recording electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles
  • Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
Figure 6: HRV used as a measure of time interval between heartbeats - measured by variation in the beat-to-beat interval

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