Complexity and familiarity enhance single-trial detectability of imagined movements with electroencephalography

Abstract

Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/anatomypub Part of the Anatomy Commons, and the Cell and Developmental Biology Commons Citation of this paper:Gibson, Raechelle M.; Chennu, Srivas; Owen, Adrian M.; and Cruse, Damian, "Complexity and familiarity enhance single-trial detectability of imagined movements with electroencephalography" (2014 AbstractObjective: We sought to determine whether the sensorimotor rhythms (SMR) elicited during motor imagery (MI) of complex and familiar actions could be more reliably detected with electroencephalography (EEG), and subsequently classified on a single-trial basis, than those elicited during relatively simpler imagined actions.Methods: Groups of healthy volunteers, including experienced pianists and ice hockey players, performed MI of varying complexity and familiarity. Their electroencephalograms were recorded and compared using brain-computer interface (BCI) approaches and spectral analyses.Results: Relative to simple MI, significantly more participants produced classifiable SMR for at least one of the more complex imagined actions. During MI of performance of a complex musical piece, the EEG of the experienced pianists was classified significantly more accurately than during MI of performance of a simpler musical piece. The accuracy of EEG classification was also significantly more sustained during complex MI. Conclusion:MI of complex actions results in more robust EEG responses than MI of relatively simpler actions, and familiarity with actions can enhance this response in some cases. Significance:The accuracy of SMR-based BCIs in non-communicative patients may be improved by employing familiar and complex actions. Increased sensitivity to MI may also improve diagnostic accuracy for severely brain-injured patients in a Vegetative State.

Optimized Motor Imagery Paradigm Based on Imagining Chinese Characters Writing Movement

“…The type of movement imagery can have a major effect on BCI performance, for example, [40] found that subjects who relied on visual imagination of hand movement performed worse than subjects who focused on the kinesthetic aspect of the same task. [41] found that subjects could attain better performance by imagining familiar actions.…”

Substitute or complement? Defining the relative place of EEG and fMRI in the detection of voluntary brain reactions

“…For example, in the sample of 14 patients recruited by Gibson et al (2014), some of them were ineligible for the fMRI and/or the EEG evaluation and only six could complete both procedures. Promising results have recently been found in EEG as well as in fMRI (Schnakers et al, 2009;Goldfine et al, 2011;Cruse et al, 2012b;Gibson et al, 2013;Holler et al, 2013;Naci and Owen, 2013). Better sensitivity may be observed with these protocols than with the one used in the present study, but since these protocols were performed by different teams in different groups of subjects it is difficult to determine precisely.…”

“…Indeed, in this protocol, the cross-validation design is a particularly delicate issue that has already been pointed out (Goldfine et al, 2013;Noirhomme et al, 2014) and that shows the strong influence of the temporal dependence between the test-set blocks on the classification accuracy. In recent studies avoiding this limitation, promising results have been found in healthy volunteers but also in some patients with DOCs (Gibson et al, 2013;Holler et al, 2013) but their replication on a larger scale is needed before clearly establishing whether they are sensitive enough to reliably capture awareness. By contrast, the conservatism of FDR correction is more a matter of debate.…”

Electrocorticographic Temporal Alteration Mapping: A Clinical Technique for Mapping the Motor Cortex with Movement-Related Cortical Potentials

“…By using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), higher motor-evoked potential (MEP) amplitude is found with more complex task, indicating an increased corticospinal excitability with increased task-complexity (Kuhtz-Buschbeck et al, 2003; Roosink and Zijdewind, 2010). Electroencephalography (EEG) studies show that sensorimotor rhythms (SMR) elicited during complex actions can be more reliably detected comparing with simple actions (Gibson et al, 2014). ECoG studies have found no evidence for increases in gamma power in subjects discriminating the strength of a somatosensory stimulus (Menon et al, 1996).…”