scholarly journals Removal of Gross Artifacts of Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation in Simultaneous EEG Monitoring

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siddharth Kohli ◽  
Alexander J. Casson

Transcranial electrical stimulation is a widely used non-invasive brain stimulation approach. To date, EEG has been used to evaluate the effect of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS), but most studies have been limited to exploring changes in EEG before and after stimulation due to the presence of stimulation artifacts in the EEG data. This paper presents two different algorithms for removing the gross tACS artifact from simultaneous EEG recordings. These give different trade-offs in removal performance, in the amount of data required, and in their suitability for closed loop systems. Superposition of Moving Averages and Adaptive Filtering techniques are investigated, with significant emphasis on verification. We present head phantom testing results for controlled analysis, together with on-person EEG recordings in the time domain, frequency domain, and Event Related Potential (ERP) domain. The results show that EEG during tACS can be recovered free of large scale stimulation artifacts. Previous studies have not quantified the performance of the tACS artifact removal procedures, instead focusing on the removal of second order artifacts such as respiration related oscillations. We focus on the unresolved challenge of removing the first order stimulation artifact, presented with a new multi-stage validation strategy.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Vosskuhl ◽  
Tuomas P. Mutanen ◽  
Toralf Neuling ◽  
Risto J. Ilmoniemi ◽  
Christoph S. Herrmann

1.AbstractBackgroundTo probe the functional role of brain oscillations, transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) has proven to be a useful neuroscientific tool. Because of the huge tACS-caused artifact in electroencephalography (EEG) signals, tACS–EEG studies have been mostly limited to compare brain activity between recordings before and after concurrent tACS. Critically, attempts to suppress the artifact in the data cannot assure that the entire artifact is removed while brain activity is preserved. The current study aims to evaluate the feasibility of specific artifact correction techniques to clean tACS-contaminated EEG data.New MethodIn the first experiment, we used a phantom head to have full control over the signal to be analyzed. Driving pre-recorded human brain-oscillation signals through a dipolar current source within the phantom, we simultaneously applied tACS and compared the performance of different artifact-correction techniques: sine subtraction, template subtraction, and signal-space projection (SSP). In the second experiment, we combined tACS and EEG on a human subject to validate the best-performing data-correction approach.ResultsThe tACS artifact was highly attenuated by SSP in the phantom and the human EEG; thus, we were able to recover the amplitude and phase of the oscillatory activity. In the human experiment, event-related desynchronization could be restored after correcting the artifact.Comparison with existing methodsThe best results were achieved with SSP, which outperformed sine subtraction and template subtraction.ConclusionsOur results demonstrate the feasibility of SSP by applying it to human tACS–EEG data.



Author(s):  
Michael A. Nitsche ◽  
Walter Paulus ◽  
Gregor Thut

Brain stimulation with weak electrical currents (transcranial electrical stimulation, tES) is known already for about 60 years as a technique to generate modifications of cortical excitability and activity. Originally established in animal models, it was developed as a noninvasive brain stimulation tool about 20 years ago for application in humans. Stimulation with direct currents (transcranial direct current stimulation, tDCS) induces acute cortical excitability alterations, as well as neuroplastic after-effects, whereas stimulation with alternating currents (transcranial alternating current stimulation, tACS) affects primarily oscillatory brain activity but has also been shown to induce neuroplasticity effects. Beyond their respective regional effects, both stimulation techniques have also an impact on cerebral networks. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been pivotal to helping reveal the physiological effects and mechanisms of action of both stimulation techniques for motor cortex application, but also for stimulation of other areas. This chapter will supply the reader with an overview about the effects of tES on human brain physiology, as revealed by TMS.



2020 ◽  
Vol 123 (6) ◽  
pp. 2504-2514
Author(s):  
Kevin T. Jones ◽  
Elizabeth L. Johnson ◽  
Zoe S. Tauxe ◽  
Donald C. Rojas

Gamma frequency-tuned transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) adjusts the magnitude and timing of auditory gamma responses, as compared with both sham stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). However, both tACS and tDCS strengthen the gamma phase connectome, which is disrupted in numerous neurological and psychiatric disorders. These findings reveal dissociable neurophysiological changes following two noninvasive neurostimulation techniques commonly applied in clinical and research settings.



2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 503-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias M. Müller ◽  
Andreas Keil

In the present study, subjects selectively attended to the color of checkerboards in a feature-based attention paradigm. Induced gamma band responses (GBRs), the induced alpha band, and the event-related potential (ERP) were analyzed to uncover neuronal dynamics during selective feature processing. Replicating previous ERP findings, the selection negativity (SN) with a latency of about 160 msec was extracted. Furthermore, and similarly to previous EEG studies, a gamma band peak in a time window between 290 and 380 msec was found. This peak had its major energy in the 55to 70-Hz range and was significantly larger for the attended color. Contrary to previous human induced gamma band studies, a much earlier 40to 50-Hz peak in a time window between 160 and 220 msec after stimulus onset and, thus, concurrently to the SN was prominent with significantly more energy for attended as opposed to unattended color. The induced alpha band (9.8–11.7 Hz), on the other hand, exhibited a marked suppression for attended color in a time window between 450 and 600 msec after stimulus onset. A comparison of the time course of the 40to 50-Hz and 55to 70-Hz induced GBR, the induced alpha band, and the ERP revealed temporal coincidences for changes in the morphology of these brain responses. Despite these similarities in the time domain, the cortical source configuration was found to discriminate between induced GBRs and the SN. Our results suggest that large-scale synchronous high-frequency brain activity as measured in the human GBR play a specific role in attentive processing of stimulus features.



2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian H. Kasten ◽  
Katharina Duecker ◽  
Marike C. Maack ◽  
Arnd Meiser ◽  
Christoph S. Herrmann

AbstractUnderstanding variability of transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) effects is one of the major challenges in the brain stimulation community. Promising candidates to explain this variability are individual anatomy and the resulting differences of electric fields inside the brain. We integrated individual simulations of electric fields during tES with source-localization to predict variability of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) aftereffects on α-oscillations. In two experiments, participants received 20 minutes of either α-tACS (1 mA) or sham stimulation. Magnetoencephalogram was recorded for 10 minutes before and after stimulation. tACS caused a larger power increase in the α-band as compared to sham. The variability of this effect was significantly predicted by measures derived from individual electric field modelling. Our results directly link electric field variability to variability of tACS outcomes, stressing the importance of individualizing stimulation protocols and providing a novel approach to analyze tACS effects in terms of dose-response relationships.



2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Vosskuhl ◽  
Tuomas P. Mutanen ◽  
Toralf Neuling ◽  
Risto J. Ilmoniemi ◽  
Christoph S. Herrmann

BackgroundTo probe the functional role of brain oscillations, transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) has proven to be a useful neuroscientific tool. Because of the excessive tACS-caused artifact at the stimulation frequency in electroencephalography (EEG) signals, tACS + EEG studies have been mostly limited to compare brain activity between recordings before and after concurrent tACS. Critically, attempts to suppress the artifact in the data cannot assure that the entire artifact is removed while brain activity is preserved. The current study aims to evaluate the feasibility of specific artifact correction techniques to clean tACS-contaminated EEG data.New MethodIn the first experiment, we used a phantom head to have full control over the signal to be analyzed. Driving pre-recorded human brain-oscillation signals through a dipolar current source within the phantom, we simultaneously applied tACS and compared the performance of different artifact-correction techniques: sine subtraction, template subtraction, and signal-space projection (SSP). In the second experiment, we combined tACS and EEG on one human subject to demonstrate the best-performing data-correction approach in a proof of principle.ResultsThe tACS artifact was highly attenuated by SSP in the phantom and the human EEG; thus, we were able to recover the amplitude and phase of the oscillatory activity. In the human experiment, event-related desynchronization could be restored after correcting the artifact.Comparison With Existing MethodsThe best results were achieved with SSP, which outperformed sine subtraction and template subtraction.ConclusionOur results demonstrate the feasibility of SSP by applying it to a phantom measurement with pre-recorded signal and one human tACS + EEG dataset. For a full validation of SSP, more data are needed.



2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1187-1196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bettina C. Schwab ◽  
Jonas Misselhorn ◽  
Andreas K. Engel


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuang Liu ◽  
Yuchen He ◽  
Dongyue Guo ◽  
Xiaoya Liu ◽  
Xinyu Hao ◽  
...  

AbstractBackgroundNumerous clinical reports suggest that psychopathy like schizophrenia, anxiety and depressive disorder is accompanied by early attentional abnormalities in emotional information processing. In the past decade, the efficacy of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) in changing emotional functioning has been repeatedly observed and has demonstrated a causal relationship between endogenous oscillations and emotional processing. However, tACS effects on emotional attention have not yet been tested.MethodsA total of 53 healthy participants were randomized to 2 groups, and they were subjected to active or sham tACS at individual alpha frequency (IAF) in the bilaterally dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Participants and received this treatment for 20 min durations daily for 7 consecutive days. On days 1 and 7, electroencephalogram (EEG) recording of 8 minute resting with eyes open and closed. Responses to a facial emotion identification task were also recorded to measure alpha changes and event-related potential (ERP) alterations.ResultsOn day 7 after tACS, the active group showed a more clear elevation in alpha power at rest, especially in open state around stimulation area, compared to the sham group. ERPs revealed a significant larger P200 amplitude after active stimulation (p < 0.05), indicating attentional improvement in facial emotion processing. Additionally, a notable positive correlation (p < 0.05) between alpha power and P200 amplitude was found, providing an electrophysiological interpretation regarding the role of tACS in emotional attention modulation. In addition, the IAF-tACS showed an obvious advantage in alpha entrainment compared to an additional 10 Hz-tACS.ConclusionsThese results support a seminal outcome for the effect of IAF-tACS on emotional attention modulation, demonstrating a feasible and individual-specific therapy for neuropsychiatric disorders related to emotion processing, especially regarding oscillatory disturbances.



PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0251513
Author(s):  
Barry Smyth

Introduction In the marathon, how runners pace and fuel their race can have a major impact on race outcome. The phenomenon known as hitting the wall (HTW) refers to the iconic hazard of the marathon distance, in which runners experience a significant slowing of pace late in the race, typically after the 20-mile mark, and usually because of a depletion of the body’s energy stores. Aim This work investigates the occurrence of significant late-race slowing among recreational marathoners, as a proxy for runners hitting the wall, to better understand the likelihood and nature of such slowdowns, and their effect on race performance. Methods Using pacing data from more than 4 million race records, we develop a pacing-based definition of hitting the wall, by identifying runners who experience a sustained period of slowing during the latter stages of the marathon. We calculate the cost of these slowdowns relative to estimates of the recent personal-best times of runners and compare slowdowns according to runner sex, age, and ability. Results We find male runners more likely to slow significantly (hit the wall) than female runners; 28% of male runners hit the wall compared with 17% of female runners, χ2(1, N = 1, 928, 813) = 27, 693.35, p < 0.01, OR = 1.43. Such slowdowns are more frequent in the 3 years immediately before and after a recent personal-best (PB) time; for example, 36% of all runners hit the wall in the 3 years before a recent PB compared with just 23% in earlier years, χ2(1, N = 509, 444) = 8, 120.74, p < 0.01, OR = 1.31. When runners hit the wall, males slow more than females: a relative slowdown of 0.40 vs. 0.37 is noted, for male and female runners, when comparing their pace when they hit the wall to their earlier race (5km-20km) pace, with t(475, 199) = 60.19, p < 0.01, d = 0.15. And male runners slow over longer distances than female runners: 10.7km vs. 9.6km, respectively, t(475, 199) = 68.44, p < 0.01, d = 0.17. Although, notably the effect size of these differences is small. We also find the finish-time costs of hitting the wall (lost minutes) to increase with ability; r2(7) = 0.91, p < 0.01 r2(7) = 0.81, p < 0.01 for male and female runners, respectively. Conclusions While the findings from this study are consistent with qualitative results from earlier single-race or smaller-scale studies, the new insights into the risk and nature of slowdowns, based on the runner sex, age, and ability, have the potential to help runners and coaches to better understand and calibrate the risk/reward trade-offs that exist as they plan for future races.



Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document