A slope-based approach to spike discrimination in digitized data.

A spike discrimination algorithm based on the analysis of spike up- and down-slopes can advantageously replace those based only on amplitude with a minimal increase of programming complexity and processing time. Such an algorithm was developed to sort muscle depolarizations from nerve spikes in electromyograms in insects. It could also be used to sort spikes according to their direction of travel in bipolar recordings from mixed nerves.