An implantable neural activity monitor with nonlinear gain-controlled amplifier

An implantable neural spike monitor with nonlinear amplifier was proposed for robust measurement against noise. In embedded electrophysiological signal processing systems, detection performance depends on signal to noise ratio (SNR), however, it is getting worth after implantation because of neoformation surrounding the electrodes and so on. We proposed a spike enhancer in this study. It has two remarkable function; automatic gain optimization with feedback loop and SNR improvement by nonlinear amplifier. In this report, the system performance was evaluated without feedback loop. A prototype circuit is prepared with small number of parts and tested on input-output characteristics. For the final evaluation, neural spike signal from somatosensory cortex of a rat was applied to the circuit. The test results show that system can expand SNR on neural spike signal from rat. It indicates that the spike enhancer can improve total performance of neural activity processing system.