Loop Fabric EEG Textrode for Brain Activity Monitoring

Abstract

Recently, metallic dry EEG electrodes have been introduced to overcome the limitation of wet electrodes, as the conductive gel used causes skin irritation and dries out over time. However, the metal dry EEG electrodes have a high weight and a stiff structure that limits them from wearable application. In this work, we have developed a textile-based EEG electrode (textrode) from silver-plated polyamide loop fabric washable up to 100 cycles. The new EEG textrode collects quality signals comparable to commercial dry Ag/AgCl EEG electrodes. The signals were detected at all major EEG bandwidths. In addition, the new textrodes showed a lower skin-to-electrode impedance (-19.23%) than the commercial dry electrode and a higher signal-to-noise ratio (+27.4%). Therefore, these novel textile-based electrodes can be used to monitor brain activity for wearable applications, especially when long-term monitoring is required.