Search Our Scientific Publications & Authors

Meat Sci 2019 May 22;151:54-59. Epub 2019 Jan 22.

Department of Pathobiology and Population Sciences, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, United Kingdom.

The electroencephalographic (EEG) responses of 31 bulls (zebu crossbred cattle) stunned with either pneumatically powered Jarvis penetrating (PCB) or non-penetrating captive bolt (NPCB) was examined. Animals were organized into two treatment groups: PCB (n = 20); and NPCB (n = 11) stunning, both using airline pressures of 220 psi (1517 kPa). All bulls shot with PCB (n = 20/20) had patterns of EEG activity that were inconsistent with consciousness. Read More

Clin EEG Neurosci 2019 Jan 23:1550059418824446. Epub 2019 Jan 23.

1 Section of Pediatric Epilepsy, Epilepsy Center, Department of Neurology, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.

Subclinical rhythmic electrographic discharges of adult (SREDA) is a rare variant considered to be normal in EEG. It consists of sharp-contoured or sinusoidal waveforms in the theta frequency range (usually 5-7 Hz), occurring in a widespread distribution, often maximal over the parietotemporal regions. SREDA is usually bilateral but could be unilateral (atypical SREDA). Read More

Hum Brain Mapp 2019 Apr 22;40(6):1718-1728. Epub 2018 Nov 22.

Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, and School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.

Hypnosis has been shown to have treatment effects on nicotine addiction. However, the neural basis of these effects is poorly understood. This preliminary study investigated the neural mechanisms of hypnosis-based treatment on cigarette smoking, specifically, whether the hypnosis involves a top-down or bottom-up mechanism. Read More

Clin EEG Neurosci 2019 May 14;50(3):219-221. Epub 2018 Nov 14.

1 University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA.

Positive occipital sharp transients of sleep (POSTS) and lambda waves have similar morphology and location. We studied a possible association between these 2 normal EEG patterns. We reviewed a series of consecutive unselected ambulatory EEGs during a 3-month period (October 16, 2017 to January 19, 2018) and identified records with POSTS and records with lambda waves. Read More

Clin Neurophysiol 2018 Sep 28;129(9):1796-1803. Epub 2018 Jun 28.

Department of Neurology, University of Chicago, USA.

Objective: Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) is the most common type of focal epilepsy, but often lacks scalp EEG correlates. We ask if hippocampal epileptiform discharges that are characteristic of mTLE are associated with small sharp spikes (SSS) recorded on scalp EEG. SSS are considered benign waveforms, so are not currently used as markers of epilepsy. Read More

Behav Brain Res 2018 07 20;347:242-254. Epub 2018 Mar 20.

Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires, Hipólito Yrigoyen 3242, 1207, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Behavioral Biology Laboratory, Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine, National Council of Scientific and Technical Research, Vuelta de Obligado 2490, 1428, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

This study investigates the influences of: 1) the task order of two stimulus equivalence classes (SEC) probes, and 2) the possible differences within the equivalence trial types. These factors were analyzed together on both behavioral and event-related potentials (ERP) data. Two groups of normal subjects participated in two successive sessions. Read More

Epilepsia 2018 04 20;59(4):877-884. Epub 2018 Mar 20.

Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

Objective: The traditional approach to interpreting electroencephalograms (EEGs) requires physicians with formal training to visually assess the waveforms. This approach can be less practical in critical settings where a trained EEG specialist is not readily available to review the EEG and diagnose ongoing subclinical seizures, such as nonconvulsive status epilepticus.

Methods: We have developed a novel method by which EEG data are converted to sound in real time by letting the underlying electrophysiological signal modulate a voice tone that is in the audible range. Read More

Brain 2018 Mar;141(3):713-730

Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

High-frequency oscillations in local field potentials recorded with intracranial EEG are putative biomarkers of seizure onset zones in epileptic brain. However, localized 80-500 Hz oscillations can also be recorded from normal and non-epileptic cerebral structures. When defined only by rate or frequency, physiological high-frequency oscillations are indistinguishable from pathological ones, which limit their application in epilepsy presurgical planning. Read More

Fa Yi Xue Za Zhi 2017 Apr 25;33(2):125-128. Epub 2017 Apr 25.

Department of Forensic Medicine, Medical College of Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China.

Objectives: To study the effect of different attentional conditions on the event-related potential （ERP） components generated by the visual information stimuli related to visual acuity, and provide a theoretical reference for clinical forensic visual objective evaluation.

Methods: With visual acuity optotypes as normal form of visual information stimuli, 15 volunteers as study subjects were supposed to account the visual acuity optotypes under the attentional condition of visual stimuli. Furthermore, the subjects were required to listen to the storytelling carefully under the non-attentional condition of visual stimuli, and after the examination, they needed to answer the story-related questions. Read More

Acta Paediatr 2017 Sep;106(9):1394-1408

Neonatal Brain Research Group, Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research (INFANT), Cork, Ireland.

This review describes the maturational features of the baseline electroencephalogram (EEG) in the neurologically healthy preterm infant. Features such as continuity, sleep state, synchrony and transient waveforms are described, even from extremely preterm infants and includes abundant illustrated examples. The physiological significance of these EEG features and their relationship to neurodevelopment are highlighted where known. Read More

Comput Math Methods Med 2017 17;2017:1861645. Epub 2017 Jan 17.

Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology (KYUTECH), Kitakyushu, Japan; RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako, Japan; Artificial Intelligence Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan.

EEG signals contain a large amount of ocular artifacts with different time-frequency properties mixing together in EEGs of interest. The artifact removal has been substantially dealt with by existing decomposition methods known as PCA and ICA based on the orthogonality of signal vectors or statistical independence of signal components. We focused on the signal morphology and proposed a systematic decomposition method to identify the type of signal components on the basis of sparsity in the time-frequency domain based on Morphological Component Analysis (MCA), which provides a way of reconstruction that guarantees accuracy in reconstruction by using multiple bases in accordance with the concept of "dictionary. Read More

Neuropsychologia 2017 02 27;96:29-38. Epub 2016 Dec 27.

Music College, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China. Electronic address:

Music is a unique communication system for human beings. Iconic musical meaning is one dimension of musical meaning, which emerges from musical information resembling sounds of objects, qualities of objects, or qualities of abstract concepts. The present study investigated whether congenital amusia, a disorder of musical pitch perception, impacts the processing of iconic musical meaning. Read More

Brain Res 2017 01 12;1655:33-40. Epub 2016 Nov 12.

Key Laboratory of Modern Teaching Technology, Ministry of Education, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710062, China. Electronic address:

The neural mechanisms underlying the processing of novel metaphors created from poetic contexts have been investigated in previous experiments. Considering the different attributes of metaphors, the current study compared the temporal dynamics for processing two kinds of novel metaphors with event-related potentials (ERPs): scientific metaphors and poetic metaphors. Amplitudes of the N400 (350-450ms) were similar for scientific metaphors and poetic metaphors. Read More

Front Psychol 2016 22;7:1413. Epub 2016 Sep 22.

Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio, University of SalentoLecce, Italy; Laboratorio Diffuso di Ricerca Interdisciplinare Applicata alla MedicinaLecce, Italy.

Speech sound perception is one of the most fascinating tasks performed by the human brain. It involves a mapping from continuous acoustic waveforms onto the discrete phonological units computed to store words in the mental lexicon. In this article, we review the magnetoencephalographic studies that have explored the timing and morphology of the N1m component to investigate how vowels and consonants are computed and represented within the auditory cortex. Read More

J Neurophysiol 2016 12 28;116(6):2720-2729. Epub 2016 Sep 28.

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida.

Previous electrophysiological studies of interaural time difference (ITD) processing have demonstrated that ITDs are represented by a nontopographic population rate code. Rather than narrow tuning to ITDs, neural channels have broad tuning to ITDs in either the left or right auditory hemifield, and the relative activity between the channels determines the perceived lateralization of the sound. With advancing age, spatial perception weakens and poor temporal processing contributes to declining spatial acuity. Read More

EURASIP J Bioinform Syst Biol 2016 Dec 7;2016(1):11. Epub 2016 Jun 7.

Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Università di Padova, via Venezia, 8, 35131 Padova, Italy.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are widely used in brain-computer interface applications and in neuroscience.  Normal EEG activity is rich in background noise, and therefore, in order to detect ERPs, it is usually necessary to take the average from multiple trials to reduce the effects of this noise.  The noise produced by EEG activity itself is not correlated with the ERP waveform and so, by calculating the average, the noise is decreased by a factor inversely proportional to the square root of , where is the number of averaged epochs. Read More

Adv Exp Med Biol 2016 ;894:315-325

Bionics Institute, Melbourne, Australia.

Aims: People with impaired hearing often have difficulties in hearing sounds in a noisy background. This problem is partially a result of the auditory systems reduced capacity to process temporal information in the sound signal. In this study we examined the relationships between perceptual sensitivity to temporal fine structure (TFS) cues, brainstem encoding of complex harmonic and amplitude modulated sounds, and the ability to understand speech in noise. Read More

J Neurophysiol 2016 Apr 17;115(4):1988-99. Epub 2016 Feb 17.

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, School of Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

We hypothesized that epilepsy affects the activity of the autonomic nervous system even in the absence of seizures, which should manifest as differences in heart rate variability (HRV) and cardiac cycle. To test this hypothesis, we investigated ECG traces of 91 children and adolescents with generalized epilepsy and 25 neurologically normal controls during 30 min of stage 2 sleep with interictal or normal EEG. Mean heart rate (HR) and high-frequency HRV corresponding to respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were quantified and compared. Read More

Curr Treat Options Neurol 2016 Feb;18(2)

Division of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology, Department of Neurology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.

Opinion Statement: Continuous electroencephalographic (EEG) monitoring has become an invaluable tool for the assessment of brain function in critically ill patients. However, interpretation of EEG waveforms, especially in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting is fraught with ambiguity. The term ictal-interictal continuum encompasses EEG patterns that are potentially harmful and can cause neuronal injury. Read More

Hear Res 2016 Mar 14;333:136-149. Epub 2016 Jan 14.

Laboratory of Experimental Audiology, ENT Department, Universitätsspital Zürich (USZ), Zürich, Switzerland.

Most simulations of cochlear implant (CI) coding strategies rely on standard vocoders that are based on purely signal processing techniques. However, these models neither account for various biophysical phenomena, such as neural stochasticity and refractoriness, nor for effects of electrical stimulation, such as spectral smearing as a function of stimulus intensity. In this paper, a neural model that accounts for stochastic firing, parasitic spread of excitation across neuron populations, and neuronal refractoriness, was developed and augmented as a preprocessing stage for a standard 22-channel noise-band vocoder. Read More

Ear Hear 2016 Mar-Apr;37(2):e91-e103

1Department of Speech Language Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; 2Department of Audiology, Speech-Language Pathology and Deaf studies, Towson University, Towson, Maryland, USA; 3Department of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; and 4Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.

Objective: Listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) typically experience reduced speech perception, which is not completely restored with amplification. This likely occurs because cochlear damage, in addition to elevating audiometric thresholds, alters the neural representation of speech transmitted to higher centers along the auditory neuroaxis. While the deleterious effects of SNHL on speech perception in humans have been well-documented using behavioral paradigms, our understanding of the neural correlates underlying these perceptual deficits remains limited. Read More

IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 2016 07 26;63(7):1440-6. Epub 2015 Oct 26.

Objective: We address the problem of characterization of afterdischarges (ADs) that often arise in patients with intractable focal epilepsy who, as part of their evaluation, undergo cortical electrical stimulation: A standard diagnostic and evaluation procedure before respective surgery.

Results: A total of 1333 channels of data recorded in 17 trials of seven patients whose EEG showed ADs (on a total of 156 channels) during cortical stimulation were examined in the time-scale domain using a complex Morlet scalogram. We found excellent characterization of the AD channels based on the distribution functions of the sum of the wavelet coefficients in the two lowest scales corresponding to the frequency range [20, 80] Hz, i. Read More

Sleep Med 2015 May 9;16(5):665-7. Epub 2015 Mar 9.

School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.

Objective: Heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEPs) in electroencephalogram (EEG) provide a quantitative measure of cardiac interoception during sleep. We previously reported reduced HEPs in children with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), indicative of attenuated cardiac information processing. The objective of this study was to investigate the link between HEP and respiration. Read More

Biol Psychol 2015 Jul 15;109:53-60. Epub 2015 Apr 15.

Institute of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China; Sichuan Research Center of Applied Psychology, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China.

Recent findings have demonstrated that N170 adaptation effects evoked by face adaptors are general to face and non-face tests, implicating adaptor-locked interferences in the rapid adaptation paradigm. Here we examined the extent to which adaptor-locked interferences confound N170 adaptation effects in different experimental parameters by manipulating the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) duration and jitter between adaptors and tests. In the short SOA, those interferences were well visible for the grand-average ERP waveforms evoked by tests, and they are likely to render rapid adaptation paradigm with short SOA unreliable. Read More

Eur J Neurosci 2015 Mar;41(5):631-40

Special Laboratory for Non-invasive Brain Imaging, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Brenneckestraße 6, 39118, Magdeburg, Germany.

In the analysis of data from magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG), it is common practice to arithmetically average event-related magnetic fields (ERFs) or event-related electric potentials (ERPs) across single trials and subsequently across subjects to obtain the so-called grand mean. Comparisons of grand means, e.g. Read More

Brain 2015 Apr 26;138(Pt 4):862-74. Epub 2015 Feb 26.

1 Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3DY, UK

Creating valid mouse models of slowly progressing human neurological diseases is challenging, not least because the short lifespan of rodents confounds realistic modelling of disease time course. With their large brains and long lives, sheep offer significant advantages for translational studies of human disease. Here we used normal and CLN5 Batten disease affected sheep to demonstrate the use of the species for studying neurological function in a model of human disease. Read More

IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng 2015 Jul 7;23(4):643-54. Epub 2015 Jan 7.

Sensory feedback is of vital importance in motor control, yet rarely assessed in diseases with impaired motor function like stroke. Muscle stretch evoked potentials (StrEPs) may serve as a measure of cortical sensorimotor activation in response to proprioceptive input. The aim of this study is: 1) to determine early and late features of the StrEP and 2) to explore whether StrEP waveform and features can be measured after stroke. Read More

Neuropsychologia 2015 Feb 7;68:82-93. Epub 2015 Jan 7.

Flaum Eye Institute, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA; Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA. Electronic address:

Partial cortical blindness is a visual deficit caused by unilateral damage to the primary visual cortex, a condition previously considered beyond hopes of rehabilitation. However, recent data demonstrate that patients may recover both simple and global motion discrimination following intensive training in their blind field. The present experiments characterized motion-induced neural activity of cortically blind (CB) subjects prior to the onset of visual rehabilitation. Read More

Psychophysiology 2015 Feb 4;52(2):169-81. Epub 2014 Sep 4.

School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.

A companion paper introduced the rERP framework, which recasts traditional event-related potential (ERP) averaging as a special case of a more flexible regression-based approach to estimating ERP waveforms. Here, we build on this foundation, showing how rERP analysis can also handle the estimation of nonlinear effects (a generalization of both the well-known approach of dichotomizing continuous covariates, and also of the ERP image technique), and can disentangle overlapping ERPs to temporally adjacent stimuli. We then consider how the use of rERPs impacts on other parts of the EEG analysis pipeline, including baselining, filtering, significance testing, and artifact rejection, and provide practical recommendations. Read More

Psychophysiology 2015 Feb 21;52(2):157-68. Epub 2014 Aug 21.

School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.

ERP averaging is an extraordinarily successful method, but can only be applied to a limited range of experimental designs. We introduce the regression-based rERP framework, which extends ERP averaging to handle arbitrary combinations of categorical and continuous covariates, partial confounding, nonlinear effects, and overlapping responses to distinct events, all within a single unified system. rERPs enable a richer variety of paradigms (including high-N naturalistic designs) while preserving the advantages of traditional ERPs. Read More

J Neural Eng 2014 Aug 25;11(4):046016. Epub 2014 Jun 25.

HEARing Co-operative Research Centre, Australia. Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, NSW, Australia. National Acoustic Laboratories, NSW, Australia.

Objective: To evaluate the viability of disentangling a series of overlapping 'cortical auditory evoked potentials' (CAEPs) elicited by different stimuli using least-squares (LS) deconvolution, and to assess the adaptation of CAEPs for different stimulus onset-asynchronies (SOAs).

Approach: Optimal aperiodic stimulus sequences were designed by controlling the condition number of matrices associated with the LS deconvolution technique. First, theoretical considerations of LS deconvolution were assessed in simulations in which multiple artificial overlapping responses were recovered. Read More

J Am Acad Audiol 2014 Feb;25(2):199-209

School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas.

Background: We recently described a research study in which age-related changes in interaural asymmetry were elicited using the N400 of the auditory event-related potentials (AERP) (Davis et al, 2013). The N400 was the primary focus due to its sensitivity to various aspects of semantic processing (Kutas and Hillyard, 1984), which we measured using a quasi-dichotic semantic category judgment task in competing speech. In this article, we describe age-related changes that occurred in the late positive component (LPC) of the AERP in the same study. Read More

J Neurosci 2014 May;34(19):6557-72

Systems Neuroscience Group, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Queensland 4006, Australia, Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia, The University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research and Perinatal Research Centre, Brisbane, Queensland 4006, Australia, Department of Children's Clinical Neurophysiology, Helsinki University Central Hospital and University of Helsinki, Helsinki HUS 00029, Finland, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Herston, Queensland 4006, Australia, and School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales and The Black Dog Institute, Randwick, New South Wales 2031, Australia.

The human brain is fragile in the face of oxygen deprivation. Even a brief interruption of metabolic supply at birth challenges an otherwise healthy neonatal cortex, leading to a cascade of homeostatic responses. During recovery from hypoxia, cortical activity exhibits a period of highly irregular electrical fluctuations known as burst suppression. Read More

PLoS One 2014 21;9(3):e91995. Epub 2014 Mar 21.

Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Liaoning Province, China.

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is an important and highly prevalent mental disorder characterized by anhedonia and a lack of interest in everyday activities. Additionally, patients with MDD appear to have deficits in various cognitive abilities. Although a number of studies investigating the central auditory processing of low-level sound features in patients with MDD have demonstrated that this population exhibits impairments in automatic processing, the influence of emotional voice processing has yet to be addressed. Read More

PLoS One 2013 27;8(12):e83669. Epub 2013 Dec 27.

Division of Neurology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America ; Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America.

The cerebral cortex serves a primary role in the pathogenesis of migraine. This aberrant brain activation in migraine can be noninvasively detected with magnetoencephalography (MEG). The objective of this study was to investigate the differences in motor cortical activation between attacks (ictal) and pain free intervals (interictal) in children and adolescents with migraine using both low- and high-frequency neuromagnetic signals. Read More

Int J Lang Commun Disord 2013 Jul-Aug;48(4):351-65. Epub 2013 Apr 11.

Brooklyn College of The City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY 11210, USA.

Background: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) show particular difficulty comprehending and producing object (Who did the bear follow?) relative to subject (Who followed the tiger?) wh-questions.

Aims: To determine if school-age children with SLI, relative to children with typical development (TD), show a more distinct unevenness, or asymmetry, in the comprehension of these questions. In addition, this study examined whether the sustained left-anterior negativity (LAN) in event-related potentials (ERP) could be used as a marker for atypical processing of these questions in children with SLI. Read More

Soc Neurosci 2013 ;8(4):326-33

School of Psychology , Northwest Normal University, Lánzhōu, China.

Previous studies have reported that when people self-reflect--they typically judge the self as more positive (or less negative) compared to others on a range of dimensions (such as health, social skills, or achievement). In the present study, we investigated whether viewing the self through the eyes of other people reduces this egocentric (self-centered) bias. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were examined in 17 subjects who performed judgments of adjectives in positive or negative valences from either self-perspective or other-perspective. Read More

J Clin Neurophysiol 2013 Jun;30(3):235-7

Epilepsy Center, Department of Neurology, The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.

Purpose: In contrast to EEG, which has guidelines for interpretation and a plethora of textbooks, the full range of activity seen in magnetoencephalography (MEG) has not been fleshed out. Currently, magnetoencephalographers apply criteria for EEG waveforms to MEG signals based on an assumption that MEG activity should have morphology that is similar to EEG. The purpose of this article was to show the characteristic MEG profile of positive occipital sharp transients of sleep. Read More

Psychophysiology 2013 Jul 12;50(7):627-39. Epub 2013 Apr 12.

Special Lab Non-Invasive Brain Imaging, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany.

Grand means of time-varying signals (waveforms) across subjects in magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) are commonly computed as arithmetic averages and compared between conditions, for example, by subtraction. However, the prerequisite for these operations, homogeneity of the variance of the waveforms in time, and for most common parametric statistical tests also between conditions, is rarely met. We suggest that the heteroscedasticity observed instead results because waveforms may differ by factors and additive terms and follow a mixed model. Read More

Clin EEG Neurosci 2013 Oct 31;44(4):307-12. Epub 2013 Mar 31.

Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, USA.

The objective of this study was to identify the relationship between lambda waves (LWs) and other occipital waveforms, in a retrospective analysis of electroencephalograms (EEGs) of clinic and hospitalized patients at a single center. The LWs were correlated with α rhythm, photic driving, and positive occipital sharp transients of sleep (POSTS). A computer-generated cursor quantified amplitude and duration of POSTS and LWs (3 waveforms and both hemispheres). Read More

Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2012 ;2012:4328-31

Medical Instrumentation Technology Department, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Athens, 12210, Greece.

Sleep spindles are transient waveforms found in the electroencephalogram (EEG) of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Sleep spindles are used for the classification of sleep stages and have been studied in the context of various psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and the so-called Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), which is considered to be a transitional stage between normal aging and dementia. The visual processing of whole-night sleep EEG recordings is tedious. Read More

Neurology 2013 Jan;80(1 Suppl 1):S4-11

Department of Neurology, Mayo College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, USA.

The EEG is a unique measure of electrical brain function and is widely used in patients with seizures. Many normal variants and variations of normal EEG have a predilection for the temporal lobe and mimic epileptiform discharges. The high prevalence of temporal lobe epilepsy and the propensity for normal variants to occupy the temporal lobe may result in an undesired bias, leading to misidentification of normal waveforms. Read More

Neurology 2013 Jan;80(1 Suppl 1):S12-25

Department of Neurology, Mayo College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, USA.

Potentials that do not conform to an expected electrical field generated by the brain characterize an extracerebral source or artifact. Artifact is present in virtually every EEG. It is an essential component for routine visual analysis, yet it may beguile the interpreter into falsely identifying waveforms that simulate epileptiform discharges (ED). Read More

Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 2012 Dec;66(7):582-6

Department of Psychiatry, Mie University Graduate School of Medicine, Tsu, Japan.

Aim: Posterior slow waves of youth have a well-known electroencephalographic pattern that peaks in adolescence and usually disappears in adulthood. In general, posterior slow waves of youth are regarded as normal, but some reports have suggested that their presence is related to immature personalities or inappropriate social behavior. The physiological significance of this electroencephalographic pattern, however, remains unclear. Read More

Doc Ophthalmol 2013 Apr 13;126(2):125-36. Epub 2012 Dec 13.

ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science, John Curtin School of Medical Research, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.

Purpose: To evaluate the ability of multifocal visual evoked potentials (mfVEPs) to identify functional loss in patients with early and exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD). A dichoptic multifocal stimulus presentation was employed to investigate the regional effects of AMD and the potential diagnostic utility in macular disease.

Methods: MfVEP responses were recorded from 19 unilateral exudative AMD patients with non-exudative (n = 15) or normal (n = 4) presentations in the fellow eye and 28 age-matched controls. Read More

J Am Acad Audiol 2013 Jan;24(1):46-58

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and.

Background: Most cochlear implant (CI) users describe music as a noise-like and unpleasant sound. Using behavioral tests, most prior studies have shown that perception of pitch-based melody and timbre is poor in CI users.

Purpose: This article will focus on cortical encoding of timbre changes in CI users, which may allow us to find solutions to further improve CI benefits. Read More

J Neural Eng 2012 Oct 17;9(5):056013. Epub 2012 Sep 17.

College of Information Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

Categorization of images containing visual objects can be successfully recognized using single-trial electroencephalograph (EEG) measured when subjects view images. Previous studies have shown that task-related information contained in event-related potential (ERP) components could discriminate two or three categories of object images. In this study, we investigated whether four categories of objects (human faces, buildings, cats and cars) could be mutually discriminated using single-trial EEG data. Read More