Dataset Information

Non-linear Analysis of Scalp EEG by Using Bispectra: The Effect of the Reference Choice.

ABSTRACT: Bispectral analysis is a signal processing technique that makes it possible to capture the non-linear and non-Gaussian properties of the EEG signals. It has found various applications in EEG research and clinical practice, including the assessment of anesthetic depth, the identification of epileptic seizures, and more recently, the evaluation of non-linear cross-frequency brain functional connectivity. However, the validity and reliability of the indices drawn from bispectral analysis of EEG signals are potentially biased by the use of a non-neutral EEG reference. The present study aims at investigating the effects of the reference choice on the analysis of the non-linear features of EEG signals through bicoherence, as well as on the estimation of cross-frequency EEG connectivity through two different non-linear measures, i.e., the cross-bicoherence and the antisymmetric cross-bicoherence. To this end, four commonly used reference schemes were considered: the vertex electrode (Cz), the digitally linked mastoids, the average reference, and the Reference Electrode Standardization Technique (REST). The reference effects were assessed both in simulations and in a real EEG experiment. The simulations allowed to investigated: (i) the effects of the electrode density on the performance of the above references in the estimation of bispectral measures; and (ii) the effects of the head model accuracy in the performance of the REST. For real data, the EEG signals recorded from 10 subjects during eyes open resting state were examined, and the distortions induced by the reference choice in the patterns of alpha-beta bicoherence, cross-bicoherence, and antisymmetric cross-bicoherence were assessed. The results showed significant differences in the findings depending on the chosen reference, with the REST providing superior performance than all the other references in approximating the ideal neutral reference. In conclusion, this study highlights the importance of considering the effects of the reference choice in the interpretation and comparison of the results of bispectral analysis of scalp EEG.

SUBMITTER: Chella F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5432555 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Non-linear Analysis of Scalp EEG by Using Bispectra: The Effect of the Reference Choice.

Chella Federico F D'Andrea Antea A Basti Alessio A Pizzella Vittorio V Marzetti Laura L

Frontiers in neuroscience 20170516

Bispectral analysis is a signal processing technique that makes it possible to capture the non-linear and non-Gaussian properties of the EEG signals. It has found various applications in EEG research and clinical practice, including the assessment of anesthetic depth, the identification of epileptic seizures, and more recently, the evaluation of non-linear cross-frequency brain functional connectivity. However, the validity and reliability of the indices drawn from bispectral analysis of EEG sig ...[more]

PMID: 28559790

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Project description:Converging evidence suggests that human cognition and behavior emerge from functional brain networks interacting on local and global scales. We investigated two information-theoretic measures of functional brain segregation and integration-interaction complexity C I (X), and integration I(X)-as applied to electroencephalographic (EEG) signals and how these measures are affected by choice of EEG reference. CI(X) is a statistical measure of the system entropy accounted for by interactions among its elements, whereas I(X) indexes the overall deviation from statistical independence of the individual elements of a system. We recorded 72 channels of scalp EEG from human participants who sat in a wakeful resting state (interleaved counterbalanced eyes-open and eyes-closed blocks). CI(X) and I(X) of the EEG signals were computed using four different EEG references: linked-mastoids (LM) reference, average (AVG) reference, a Laplacian (LAP) "reference-free" transformation, and an infinity (INF) reference estimated via the Reference Electrode Standardization Technique (REST). Fourier-based power spectral density (PSD), a standard measure of resting state activity, was computed for comparison and as a check of data integrity and quality. We also performed dipole source modeling in order to assess the accuracy of neural source CI(X) and I(X) estimates obtained from scalp-level EEG signals. CI(X) was largest for the LAP transformation, smallest for the LM reference, and at intermediate values for the AVG and INF references. I(X) was smallest for the LAP transformation, largest for the LM reference, and at intermediate values for the AVG and INF references. Furthermore, across all references, CI(X) and I(X) reliably distinguished between resting-state conditions (larger values for eyes-open vs. eyes-closed). These findings occurred in the context of the overall expected pattern of resting state PSD. Dipole modeling showed that simulated scalp EEG-level CI(X) and I(X) reflected changes in underlying neural source dependencies, but only for higher levels of integration and with highest accuracy for the LAP transformation. Our observations suggest that the Laplacian-transformation should be preferred for the computation of scalp-level CI(X) and I(X) due to its positive impact on EEG signal quality and statistics, reduction of volume-conduction, and the higher accuracy this provides when estimating scalp-level EEG complexity and integration.

Project description:Epilepsy is a chronic brain disease that causes persistent and severe damage to the physical and mental health of patients. Daily effective prediction of epileptic seizures is crucial for epilepsy patients especially those with refractory epilepsy. At present, a large number of deep learning algorithms such as Convolutional Neural Networks and Recurrent Neural Networks have been used to predict epileptic seizures and have obtained better performance than traditional machine learning methods. However, these methods usually transform the Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal into a Euclidean grid structure. The conversion suffers from loss of adjacent spatial information, which results in deep learning models requiring more storage and computational consumption in the process of information fusion after information extraction. This study proposes a general Graph Convolutional Networks (GCN) model architecture for predicting seizures to solve the problem of oversized seizure prediction models based on exploring the graph structure of EEG signals. As a graph classification task, the network architecture includes graph convolution layers that extract node features with one-hop neighbors, pooling layers that summarize abstract node features; and fully connected layers that implement classification, resulting in superior prediction performance and smaller network size. The experiment shows that the model has an average sensitivity of 96.51%, an average AUC of 0.92, and a model size of 15.5 k on 18 patients in the CHB-MIT scalp EEG dataset. Compared with traditional deep learning methods, which require a large number of parameters and computational effort and are demanding in terms of storage space and energy consumption, this method is more suitable for implementation on compact, low-power wearable devices as a standard process for building a generic low-consumption graph network model on similar biomedical signals. Furthermore, the edge features of graphs can be used to make a preliminary determination of locations and types of discharge, making it more clinically interpretable.

Project description:It is well-established that both volume conduction and the choice of recording reference (montage) affect the correlation measures obtained from scalp EEG, both in the time and frequency domains. As a result, a number of correlation measures have been proposed aiming to reduce these effects. In our previous work, we have showed that scalp-EEG based functional brain networks in patients with epilepsy exhibit clear periodic patterns at different time scales and that these patterns are strongly correlated to seizure onset, particularly at shorter time scales (around 3 and 5 h), which has important clinical implications. In the present work, we use the same long-duration clinical scalp EEG data (multiple days) to investigate the extent to which the aforementioned results are affected by the choice of reference choice and correlation measure, by considering several widely used montages as well as correlation metrics that are differentially sensitive to the effects of volume conduction. Specifically, we compare two standard and commonly used linear correlation measures, cross-correlation in the time domain, and coherence in the frequency domain, with measures that account for zero-lag correlations: corrected cross-correlation, imaginary coherence, phase lag index, and weighted phase lag index. We show that the graphs constructed with corrected cross-correlation and WPLI are more stable across different choices of reference. Also, we demonstrate that all the examined correlation measures revealed similar periodic patterns in the obtained graph measures when the bipolar and common reference (Cz) montage were used. This includes circadian-related periodicities (e.g., a clear increase in connectivity during sleep periods as compared to awake periods), as well as periodicities at shorter time scales (around 3 and 5 h). On the other hand, these results were affected to a large degree when the average reference montage was used in combination with standard cross-correlation, coherence, imaginary coherence, and PLI, which is likely due to the low number of electrodes and inadequate electrode coverage of the scalp. Finally, we demonstrate that the correlation between seizure onset and the brain network periodicities is preserved when corrected cross-correlation and WPLI were used for all the examined montages. This suggests that, even in the standard clinical setting of EEG recording in epilepsy where only a limited number of scalp EEG measurements are available, graph-theoretic quantification of periodic patterns using appropriate montage, and correlation measures corrected for volume conduction provides useful insights into seizure onset.

Dataset Information

Non-linear Analysis of Scalp EEG by Using Bispectra: The Effect of the Reference Choice.

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Non-linear Analysis of Scalp EEG by Using Bispectra: The Effect of the Reference Choice.

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