Fetal brain monitor
AssigneeNew York University
InventorLeslie S Prichep
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A Fetal Brain Monitor (FBM) utilizes a transducer which is placed on the abdomen of a mother and which is pulsed to generate auditory sounds, i.e., clicks, to provide auditory brainstem evoked responses (BAER) of a fetus within the mother's uterus. The fetus' brain waves are detected by a biosensor, amplified, converted to digital data, and analyzed, in one embodiment, using a digital comb filter to improve the signal/noise ratio. The computer system uses QEEG (Quantitative EEG) to compare the data from the fetus to normative data or to prior states of the fetus' own data (self-norm)
Claims20
A method of monitoring a brain wave response of a fetus in utero, comprising the steps of:
- (a) removably connecting an auditory transducer to an abdomen of a mother of the fetus;
- (b) removably connecting at least one biosensor electrode to the mother's abdomen to detect brain wave activity in the fetus;
- (c) pulsing the transducer to emit pulsed audible sounds at predetermined times;
- (d) detecting, for each pulsed audible sound, a series of voltage oscillations corresponding to brain stem auditory evoked responses (BAER) of the fetus which are time-locked to the corresponding audible sound;
- and
- (e) converting the BAER analog output to BAER digital data.
A Fetal Brain Monitor for monitoring a brain wave response of a fetus in utero, comprising:
- (a) an auditory transducer producing pulsed audible sounds and adapted to be placed on an abdomen of a mother of the fetus;
- (b) at least one biosensor electrode adapted to be placed on the mother's abdomen for detecting electrical activity of a brain of the fetus;
- (c) a pulsing arrangement pulsing the transducer so that it emits pulsed audible sounds at predetermined times;
- (d) an amplifier connected to the at least one biosensor electrode to amplify brain stem auditory responses (BAER) of the fetus detected by the at least one biosensor electrode which are time-locked to the sounds;
- (e) an analog/digital converter converting the analog BAER data to BAER digital data;
- (f) a computer-based QEEG (Quantitative EEG) system improving a signal to noise ratio of the BAER digital data and analyzing the BAER digital data;
- and
- (g) a display displaying results of the QEEG analysis as an indication of a status of the BAER.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.