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A multi-channel, real-time, unsupervised spike discriminator was developed in order to reconstruct single spike trains from several simultaneously recorded multi-unit nerve filaments. The program uses a Self Organising Map (SOM) algorithm for the classification of the spikes. In contrast to previous similar techniques, the described method is made for use on a PC, and the method may thus be implemented at relatively low cost. In order to test the accuracy of the program, a robustness test was performed, where noise with different RMS levels was superimposed on the spikes. Furthermore, the maximal classification rate was determined. The program is easy to use, since the only manual inputs needed are the voltage threshold for spike detection, and the number of units present in each recorded nerve filament.

Ensemble coding of simple mechanical stimuli (small sinusoidal stretches) was studied in simultaneously recorded mixed ensembles of primary- and secondary muscle spindle afferents (MSAs), and Golgi tendon organ (GTO) afferents recorded from L7-S1 dorsal root filaments. The experiments were made on 48 recorded afferents (29 primary MSAs, 6 secondary MSAs and 13 GTO afferents) in chloralose anaesthetised cats. For the analyses, we used a combination of principal component analysis and algorithms for quantification of stimulus discrimination. Mixed ensembles of primary- and secondary MSAs, and GTO afferents, discriminated significantly better between different muscle stretches than ensembles of only one or two types of these afferents. All kinds of ensembles showed a successive increase in discriminative ability with increased ensemble size, and this ability seemed to level at larger populations. However, the increase in discriminative ability was significantly greater for the mixed ensembles. It is hypothesised that the main reason for the greater discriminative ability achieved by mixed ensembles, might be that the variation in response profiles (sensitivity tuning) among the individual afferents of the mixed ensemble will be larger than that for ensembles of only one type of afferent. Finally, the results in the present study give experimental support to some of the teleological arguments in favour of the ensemble coding theory.

This paper presents an assessment tool for objective neck movement analysis of subjects suffering from chronic whiplash-associated disorders (WAD). Three-dimensional (3-D) motion data is collected by a commercially available motion analysis system. Head rotation, defined in this paper as the rotation angle around the instantaneous helical axis (IHA), is used for extracting a number of variables (e.g., angular velocity and range, symmetry of motion). Statistically significant differences were found between controls and subjects with chronic WAD in a number of variables.

This paper presents a new method for classification of neck movement patterns related to Whiplash-associated disorders (WAD) using a resilient backpropagation neural network (BPNN). WAD are a common diagnosis after neck trauma, typically caused by rear-end car accidents. Since physical injuries seldom are found with present imaging techniques, the diagnosis can be difficult to make. The active range of the neck is often visually inspected in patients with neck pain, but this is a subjective measure, and a more objective decision support system, that gives a reliable and more detailed analysis of neck movement pattern, is needed. The objective of this study was to evaluate the predictive ability of a BPNN, using neck movement variables as input. Three-dimensional (3-D) neck movement data from 59 subjects with WAD and 56 control subjects were collected with a ProReflex system. Rotation angle and angle velocity were calculated using the instantaneous helical axis method and motion variables were extracted. A principal component analysis was performed in order to reduce data and improve the BPNN performance. BPNNs with six hidden nodes had a predictivity of 0.89, a sensitivity of 0.90 and a specificity of 0.88, which are very promising results. This shows that neck movement analysis combined with a neural network could build the basis of a decision support system for classifying suspected WAD, even though further evaluation of the method is needed.

A common question in movement studies is how the results should be interpreted with respect to systematic and random errors. In this study, simulations are made in order to see how a rigid body's orientation in space (i.e. helical angle between two orientations) is affected by (1) a systematic error added to a single marker (2) a combination of this systematic error and Gaussian white noise. The orientation was estimated after adding a systematic error to one marker within the rigid body. This procedure was repeated with Gaussian noise added to each marker.

In conclusion, results show that the systematic error's effect on estimated orientation depends on number of markers in the rigid body and also on which direction the systematic error is added. The systematic error has no effect if the error is added along the radial axis (i.e. the line connecting centre of mass and the affected marker).