Separation of signal and noise from in vivo optical recording in Guinea pigs using independent component analysis

Optical recording in vivo severely suffers from the interference of heartbe at noise. So far, heartbeat noise has been minimized by subtracting from ea ch experimental trial an average of interlaced control recordings. This met hod, however, is time-consuming and increases tissue damage due to phototox icity. Here we applied independent component analysis (ICA) to in vivo opti cal recordings, for separation of auditory signals and noises. Our results show that ICA can be successfully used to separate sound-evoked signals and heartbeat noises. Compared with the previous method, ICA has a comparable power of separation and does not require background recordings. (C) 2001 El sevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.