Changes in eeg power spectral density and cortical connectivity in healthy and tetraplegic patients during a motor imagery task

28Citations
Citations of this article
69Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

Knowledge of brain connectivity is an important aspect of modern neuroscience, to understand how the brain realizes its functions. In this work, neural mass models including four groups of excitatory and inhibitory neurons are used to estimate the connectivity among three cortical regions of interests (ROIs) during a foot-movement task. Real data were obtained via high-resolution scalp EEGs on two populations: healthy volunteers and tetraplegic patients. A 3-shell Boundary Element Model of the head was used to estimate the cortical current density and to derive cortical EEGs in the three ROIs. The model assumes that each ROI can generate an intrinsic rhythm in the beta range, and receives rhythms in the alpha and gamma ranges from other two regions. Connectivity strengths among the ROIs were estimated by means of an original genetic algorithm that tries to minimize several cost functions of the difference between real and model power spectral densities. Results show that the stronger connections are those from the cingulate cortex to the primary and supplementary motor areas, thus emphasizing the pivotal role played by the CMAL during the task. Tetraplegic patients exhibit higher connectivity strength on average, with significant statistical differences in some connections. The results are commented and virtues and limitations of the proposed method discussed. Copyright © 2009 Filippo Cona et al.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Cona, F., Zavaglia, M., Astolfi, L., Babiloni, F., & Ursino, M. (2009). Changes in eeg power spectral density and cortical connectivity in healthy and tetraplegic patients during a motor imagery task. Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1155/2009/279515

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free