DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN ARTIFACTS AND CONTRACTIONS IN PRESSURE SIGNALSFROM THE GASTROINTESTINAL-TRACT BY PATTERN-RECOGNITION METHOD

A pattern recognition algorithm has been developed to discriminate bet ween artefacts and contractions in interdigestive motility recorded by a pressure catheter with four channels from the human duodenum. A lea rning and a test set, both containing natural and induced artefacts, s uch as respiration and body movement, are obtained from five volunteer s. The event classes were phase I, II and III contractions of the inte rdigestive motility complex and artefacts from respiration, cough, cal ibration signals and movements. Length, area, amplitude, inter-event i nterval, up- and downstroke, and correlation to other pressure channel s and to respiration, are applied to classify the events. The sensitiv ity of the computer scoring increases with the number of applied featu res. When all the features are applied, the sensitivity of the Bayes' classifier against the visually scored contractions and artefacts is 0 . 96 with a specificity of 0 . 69.