Fast stimulus artifact recovery in a multichannel neural recording system

We describe a 32-channel recording system and software artifact blanking technique for recording neuronal responses to high-rate electrical stimulation. Each recording channel recovers from biphasic full-scale-input pulses (1.5 V) in less than 80 mus. Artifacts are blanked online in software, allowing flexibility in the choice of blanking period and the possibility of recovering neural data occurring simultaneously with non-saturating artifacts. The system has been used in-vivo to record central neuronal responses to intracochlear electrical stimulation at 2000 pulses per second. Simplicity of the hardware design makes the technique well suited to an implantable multi-channel recording system.