Acquisition of DC component of biopotentials with body surface electrodes

The dc component of biological sources is difficult to measure with body surface electrodes. This is due to the existence of an electrical polarization in the interface between the electrode and the electrolyte. A system to acquire a dc component of the biological origin is proposed by means of differentiating the polarization potential from the biological one. The acquisition system is comprised of an instrumentation amplifier, an integrated semiconductor analog switch, and ordinary silver/silver-chloride body surface electrodes. Biopotentials, electrooculograms from the eyes, were noninvasively recorded by the system with the analog switch which was inserted between the electrodes to make the two inputs electrically open following them being shorted. Asymptotes of a triple exponential function were subsequently extracted by regression model analysis on the output signals that were acquired immediately after the switch opened. One of the distinctive asymptotes of the function showed that the magnitude which corresponded to eye movements stayed stable as long as the eyes were fixed. Analysis of the time constants involved in the acquisition system elucidated that the asymptote was the biological origin.