BacAv, a new free online platform for clinical back-averaging

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Clinical Electrophysiology

Background:

• The back-average technique is crucial for studying cortex-muscle activity relations.
• Clinical applications include Bereitschaftspotential (BP) and myoclonus studies.
• Existing hardware is standard, but software solutions for analysis are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the methodology for recording clinical BPs and myoclonus.
• To present BacAv, a free, online application for back-average analysis.
• To make advanced analysis methods more accessible in clinical settings.

Main Methods:

• BacAv was developed using the R language and Rstudio.
• The study provides recommended parameters for data acquisition for BP and myoclonus studies.

Main Results:

• The BacAv platform was successfully developed.
• It can read text files, identify muscle bursts, segment data, and plot averages.
• Algorithm parameters are adaptable to different datasets.

Conclusions:

• Software was developed for clinicians lacking sophisticated back-averaging equipment.
• This tool increases the availability of back-averaging analysis in clinical environments.