Waveform analysis apparatus and method using neural network techniques

A wave analysis assembly for discriminating physiological signals produced within the body and for producing output indicative of disease characteristics, said assembly comprising;

• means for supplying a plurality of independent features characteristic of a waveform contained within a physiological signal, a classifier neural network (36) having a nonlinear distributed network of learned features and combinations thereof associated with a plurality of disease and normal patient states for transforming the features characterizing the physiological signal through the distributed network to produce an output representative of any of said plurality diseased and normal states, and output means for receiving the output and indicating the diseased and normal states.

A wave analysis assembly for discriminating electrical signals having a waveform, said assembly comprising;

• input means (12) for sampling an electrical signal, control means (20) for identifying the location of individual unknown waveforms occurring about a peak within said electrical signal and producing a set comprised of the individual unknown waveforms, extraction neural network (22, 22') having a distributed network of synaptic weights for receiving the set and for learning the unknown waveform by a mapping transformation of said individual waveforms of the set in the distributed network of synaptic weights to produce a learned waveform and for extracting the learned waveform from the electrical signal, and output means (42) for outputting information of said extracted waveform, said extraction neural network including learning means for learning a template waveform inputted by the user for the extraction.

A method of discriminating electrical signals and producing an output, said method comprising the steps of:

• sensing the signals and producing an electrical signal, identifying the location of individual unknown waveforms occurring about a peak within the electrical signal, producing a set comprised of the individual unknown waveforms, learning the unknown waveform within the electrical signal by a mapping transformation of the individual waveforms of the set in a distributed network of synaptic weights to produce a learned waveform, extracting the learned waveform from the electrical signal, and outputting information based on the extracted waveform.

A method for discriminating physiological signals produced within the body and for producing output indicative of disease characteristics, the method including the steps of;

• producing a plurality of independent features characteristic of a waveform contained within a physiological signal, learning and storing known features and combinations thereof associated with a plurality of disease and normal patient states in a distributed network, transforming the features through the distributed network to produce an output signal representative of any of said plurality of diseased states.