Method for measuring the field pattern of electrical or magnetic fields emanating from a biological power source using a sensor arrangement for obtaining chronological map of the position of the biological power source

Claim 1

A method identifying parameters defining the spatial position of a biological power source in a region of a patient, said biological power source causing a field pattern of an electrical or magnetic field, in the presence of background activity which causes a further electric or magnetic field pattern, stable in time, superimposed on said field patterns from said power source, said method comprising the steps of: measuring background field activity B at a time t 0 using N sensors before field activity from said power source is present to obtain a resultant background signal vector S N (B)(t 0 ) from the chronological amplitude curve and stable spatial distribution of said background activity B; measuring superimposed power source and background field activity at times t x between times t 2 and t 3 , following t 0 , using said N sensors to obtain a resultant signal vector S N (M)(t x ) from the chronological amplitude curve and spatial distribution of the superimposed power source and background field activity; for each time t x , multiplying said background signal vector S N (B)(t 0 ) by a weighting factor W(t x ) thereby altering the length of said background signal vector to obtain a product vector, (W)(t x )×S N (B)(t 0 ); and subtracting said product vector and a power source signal vector S N (Q)(t x ) defined by said parameters (Q) from said resultant signal vector S N (M)(t x ) at each time t x to obtain a difference; conducing an iterative calculating of said weighting factor W(t x ) and said parameters (Q) so that said difference is minimized; and generating and displaying a chronological map of the position of said biological power source in said region of said patient over said times t x .

Claim 2

A method identifying parameters defining the spatial position of a biological power source in a region of a patient, said biological power source causing a field pattern of an electrical or magnetic field, in the presence of background activity which causes a further electric or magnetic field pattern, stable in time, superimposed on said field patterns from said power source, said method comprising the steps of: measuring background field activity B at a time t 0 using N sensors before field activity from said power source is present to obtain a resultant background signal vector S N (B)(t 0 ) from the chronological amplitude curve and stable spatial distribution of said background activity B; measuring superimposed power source and background field activity at times t x between times t 2 and t 3 , following t 0 , using said N sensors to obtain a resultant signal vector S N (M)(t x ) from the chronological amplitude curve and spatial distribution of the superimposed power source and background field activity; for each time t x , multiplying said background signal vector S N (B)(t 0 ) by a weighting factor W(t x ) thereby altering the length of said background signal vector to obtain a product vector, (W)(t x )×S N (B)(t 0 ); and subtracting said product vector and a power source signal vector S N (Q)(t x ) defined by said parameters (Q) from said resultant signal vector S N (M)(t x ) at each time t x to obtain a difference; conducing an iterative calculating of said weighting factor W(t x ) and said parameters (Q) so that said difference is minimized; and generating and displaying a chronological map of the position of said biological power source in said region of said patient over said times t x .