Blind separation of slow waves and spikes from gastrointestinal myoelectrical recordings

Myoelectrical recordings of the gut contain slow waves (slow rhythmicity) and spikes (fast rhythmicity). While the slow wave determines the frequency and propagation of gastrointestinal contractions, spike activities are directly associated with the contractions. Traditionally, spikes are extracted from the myoelectrical recording using high-pass/bandpass filters. Due to the sharp rising edge (high-frequency component) of the slow wave, the conventional method is not accurate in the separation of the slow wave and spikes, although it has been used for years. In this paper, a novel and fast blind source separation algorithm is developed. Experimental results show that the proposed method was able to accurately extract spike activities from the myoelectrical recordings obtained in dogs and that its performance was not affected by the high-frequency components of the slow wave.