Late potential detection using the phase of the Bispectrum

The detection of Ventricular Late Potentials without averaging several hundred QRS complexes is highly desirable. The Bispectrum offers two attractive properties for this task, namely the suppression of Gaussian noise and the detection of signals arising from non-linear processes. A Bispectral Phase Index (BPI) is formed using the phase of the Bispectrum. This enables quadratically phase-coupled components to be defected from signals that do not have a random phase. The technique is used to distinguish successfully between normal high resolution recordings and those with added synthetic late potentials.