Why nerve signals should be measured monopolarly

A nerve signal, to which white noise was added, and monopolar and bipolar recordings of this signal were simulated. As a measure for nerve activity both signals were integrated (NA_mon and NA_bip ). The bipolar signal was rectified before integration. NA_MON appeared to be a linear measure for nerve activity while NA_bip underestimated it at high firing rates. Furthermore NA _mon was less sensitive to noise than NA_bip. It was therefore concluded that the integrated non-rectified monopolar recording of a nerve signal is a better measure for the nerve activity than the integrated rectified bipolar recording