Patent ID: 8764676

Claim:
A method for estimating a response of at least a part of a physiological system to a first deterministic stimulus signal, the method comprising: receiving, at a computing device, a first signal measured from the physiological system in response to the first stimulus signal; separating, using a processor, the measured first signal into a plurality of segments, each segment representing a response of the physiological system to a corresponding portion of the first stimulus signal; generating, using a processor, a template signal representing the plurality of segments; calculating, using a processor, a measure of similarity of each segment in the plurality of segments to the template signal to provide a set of scalar quantities, wherein calculating the measure of similarity comprises calculating a correlation between the segment and the template signal; and determining, using a processor, a metric representing a characteristic of the response of at least a part of the physiological system to the first stimulus signal, wherein the metric is a ratio of a measure of central tendency to a measure of dispersion, wherein the measure of central tendency and the measure of dispersion are computed from the set of scalar quantities.