Time-frequency behaviour of the a-wave of the human electroretinogram

Abstract

The electroretinogram is the record of the electrical response of the retina to a light stimulus. The two main components are the a-wave and the b-wave, the former is related to the early photoreceptoral activity. Aim of this paper is to acquire useful information about the time-frequency features of the human a-wave, by means of the wavelet analysis. This represents a proper approach in dealing with nonstationary signals. We have used the Mexican Hat as mother wavelet. The analysis, carried out for four representative values of the luminance, comprehends the frequency dependence of the variance and the skeleton. The results indicate a predominance of low frequency components, their time distribution depends on the luminance whereas that of the high frequency components is little affected by the luminance.