The Status of Textile-Based Dry EEG Electrodes

Abstract

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is the biopotential recording of electrical signals generated by brain activity. It is useful for monitoring sleep quality and alertness, clinical applications, diagnosis, and treatment of patients with epilepsy, disease of Parkinson and other neurological disorders, as well as continuous monitoring of tiredness/ alertness in the field. We provide a review of textile-based EEG. Most of the developed textile-based EEGs remain on shelves only as published research results due to a limitation of flexibility, stickability, and washability, although the respective authors of the works reported that signals were obtained comparable to standard EEG. In addition, nearly all published works were not quantitatively compared and contrasted with conventional wet electrodes to prove feasibility for the actual application. This scenario would probably continue to give a publication credit, but does not add to the growth of the specific field, unless otherwise new integration approaches and new conductive polymer composites are evolved to make the application of textile-based EEG happen for bio-potential monitoring.

PEDOT:PSS-Based Conductive Textiles and Their Applications

“…Solution-based conductive polymers are especially convenient for the roll-to-roll processing which can easily be integrated with the current textile processing technologies like dyeing and printing. There are several reports [27][28][29] on the use of conductive polymers for conductive textile for different applications. Recently reported conductivities of over 6000 S/cm [30] are signaling their practical potential use in the smart textiles applications.…”

Integration of Conductive Materials with Textile Structures, an Overview

“…Smart textiles are materials and structures that sense and react to environmental conditions or stimuli, such as those from mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, magnetic, or other sources [1]. Textiles are materials that can react on themselves, unlike ordinary clothes.…”

PEDOT:PSS/PDMS-Coated Cotton Fabric for Strain and Moisture Sensors

“…The bending length according to BS 3356:1990 test methods showed an increase from 2.45 cm to 2.65 cm and its respective flexural rigidity (1) increased from 206 to 484 mg cm. (1) where G = flexural rigidity (mg) cm, C = bending length (cm), and M = mass/area of specimen (g/m 2 ).…”

“…Currently, textile materials are required to possess supplementary functionalities in addition to the standard comfort and durability capabilities, in line with the phenomenal growth of electronics and computing on the go [1,2]. Textile articles have attained all-embracing demand to construct flex, stretchy, and washable hardware in different domains such as an electrocardiograph (ECG) sensor [3], an antenna [4], and an energy harvesting device reported [5].…”