Signal strength in nerve cuff electrode recordings

The Nerve Cuff Electrode has been widely to record nerve signals. The correct choice of cuff dimensions and configurations has shown to be crucial for optimization of the signal to noise ratio in the recordings. Traditionally the peak-peak amplitude of the single fiber action potential is optimized through the choice of cuff dimensions. In this work the dependency of the root mean square value (RMS) of the nerve signal on the cuff dimensions was studied. This was done by superpositioning single fiber action potentials obtained from an inhomogeneous volume conductor model. The results showed that the RMS value of the nerve signal was considerably more sensitive to the cuff length than was the peak-peak amplitude.