Data acquisition in neurophysiology. A flexible microcomputer system for recording neurophysiological data

The advent of the microprocessor, and its incorporation in relatively low-cost microcomputer systems, offers a new range of possibilities for the recording of evoked and event-related potentials. A flexible system for recording evoked potentials, entitled DAN, has been developed using an Apple microcomputer. The main objective in developing DAN was to make it sufficiently flexible so that it could be used in both a research and a clinical environment for a wide range of responses, from the auditory brainstem to much slower cortical responses. A specific response can be selected from a standard range of evoked responses, or if a non-standard response is required, it is a simple matter to specify the response stimulus parameters, time duration and data sampling rate. This degree of versatility is achieved by designing a programmable audiometer, a special-purpose hardware interface for the Apple and software to generate the stimulus and control the data-acquisition interface. The main hardware components of the DAN system are listed (a) Apple microcomputer operating under U.C.S.D. PASCAL operating system; (b) dual 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drives and controller; (c) Video monitor; (d) DAN data-acquisition interface; (3) programmable audiometer; (f) Epson MX-80 printer/plotter. Disk drive 1 of the dual drive set is used to store the PASCAL operating system and the DAN programs. Drive 2 is used to store the data. The data-acquisition interface and audiometer interface plug into slots in the Apple. The software includes routines to generate the stimulus and store it in the audiometer prior to the data-acquisition phase.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)