A Maximum Likelihood Method for Estimating EEG Evoked Potentials

The problem of EEG evoked potential (EP) estimation is basically one of estimating a transient signal embedded in nonstationary mostly additive noise; and as such it is well suited to a nonstationary estimation approach utilizing, for example, the Kalman filter. The method presented in this paper is based on a model of the EEG response which is assumed to be the sum of the EP and independent correlated Gaussian noise representing the spontaneous EEG activity. The EP is assumed to vary in both shape and latency; the latter is assumed to be governed by some unspecified probability density; and no assumption on stationarity is needed for the noise. With the model described in state-space form, a Kalman filter is constructed, and the variance of the innovation process is derived; a maximum likelihood solution to the EP estimation problem is then obtained via this innovation process. The method was tested on simulated as well as real EEG data.