Spectral characterization of human EHG frequency components based on the extraction and reconstruction of the ridges in the scalogram

Numerous studies have observed and analyzed the external electrical activity of the uterus, the so-called electrohysterogram (EHG), associated with contractions during pregnancy and labor. The EHG is mainly composed of two distinct frequency components, FWL (fast wave low, low frequency component) and FWH (fast wave high, high frequency component). It has been suggested that FWH is mainly associated with uterine cell excitability and FWL with the propagation of this activity. This hypothesis is still unproven. We compared two procedures for ridge extraction/reconstruction of the EHG scalogram, with the objective of analyzing the propagation of the EHG on FWH and FWL separately. The performance of the methods under investigation was tested on both synthetic and real signals. The results indicate that the EHG can be characterized by two distinct continuous ridges, supposed to be FWH and FWL, with a low reconstruction error. We have also shown that the extracted ridges have different energy, temporal characteristics and bandwidths.