An objective assessment of fetal and neonatal auditory evoked responses

We propose to use cross-correlation function to determine significant fetal and neonatal evoked responses (ERs).

We quantify ERs by cross-correlation between the stimulus time series and the recorded brain signals. The statistical significance of the correlation is calculated by surrogate analysis. For validation of our approach we investigated a model which mimics the generation of ERs. The model assumes a fixed latency of the ER and contains two parameters, epsilon and lambda. Whether or not the system responds to a given stimulus is controlled by epsilon. The amount to which the system is excited from the base line (background activity) is governed by lambda. We demonstrate the technique by applying it to auditory evoked responses from four fetuses (21 records) between 27 and 39 weeks of gestational age and four neonates (eight records).

The method correctly identified the ER and the latency incorporated in the model. A combined analysis of fetuses and neonates data resulted in a significant negative correlation between age and latency.

The analysis of ER, especially for fetal and newborn recordings, should be based on advanced data analysis including the assessment of the significance of responses. The negative correlation between age and latency indicates the neurological maturation.

The proposed method can be used to objectively assess the ER in fetuses and neonates.