The aim of the proposed work is to develop an active electrode hat for high quality EEG recordings without skin preparation or electrolyte gels. This will greatly reduce patient preparation time for multichannel EEG recordings. It will also improve the signal quality over time, since there will be no electrolytic fluid to dry up. There also will be no long cables between head and amplifiers to pick up noise from stray environmental fields. Simplified application of many channels of EEG will also facilitate ambulatory monitoring of patients. Localization of abnormal foci may be assisted by the ease of recording many channels (up to 64). Because of high input impedance, dry electrodes may be applied without skin preparation. Differential amplification at the hat itself provides noise immunity. The circuits will be battery-powered, improving patient safety. The Phase I project will be the design and testing of a simplified 16- channel hat with a breadboard of commercially available parts. An IC will be designed in Phase II to optimize size and performance for commercial applications of hats with up to 64 channels.
