The Maastricht Cerebral Monitor (MCM) for the neonatal intensive care unit

Although long-term monitoring of cerebral activity can be important in neon atal intensive care, the complexity of multichannel EEG makes it less suita ble for this purpose. In the past, a cerebral function monitor (CFM) was de veloped that analyses EEC The output parameter of the CFM is a semi-logarit hmic amplitude distribution resulting from the amplification bandpass filte ring, compression, rectification and smoothing of the single-channel EEG. D rawbacks of the CFM include its inflexibility and limited single-channel pr ocessing capacity and its lack of functionality for data storage, review or re-analysis. Modern computers are powerful enough that a system can be bui lt which does not have these drawbacks. We have developed such a system: th e Maastricht Cerebral Monitor (MCM). The MCM is a flexible system that not only overcomes the CFM drawbacks but also provides advanced signal analysis . A was developed with a software system (Poly) for acquisition, high quali ty real-time display, on-line analysts and storage of physiological signals . The MCM processes three EEG signals in the amplitude and frequency domain s. Other parameters provided by the MCM are asymmetry of absolute frequency powers, percentage suppression, mean and 90% spectral edge frequency. Elec trode impedance is recorded as a measure of quality of the recording.