Effects of analog and digital filtering on brain stem auditory evoked potentials

Most investigators of the brains stem auditory evoked potentials utilize analog filters to reduce the noise content of the averaged signals, but different investigators use different filter bandwidths. Data presented in this note compare the effects of different upper and lower cutoff frequencies for both analog and zero-phase shift digital filters. Effects on response wave form and on measured values of amplitude and latency of wave V are considered. It is concluded that, for given cutoff frequencies, analog filtering causes more distortion of the response than digital filtering, due primarily to phase distortion introduced by the analog filter. It is likely that differences in filter cutoff frequencies, especially lower cutoff frequencies, are a significant source of variability in results reported by different investigators.