静息态脑电信号动态功能连接分析

静息态脑功能连接分析是近年来脑研究的一个热点问题, 对于某些脑疾病的诊断及成因理解具有重要意义. 已有的脑功能连接研究基本上都假设功能连接网络在一段时间内是稳定不变的, 但越来越多的证据表明它应该是随时间动态变化的. 对25名被试睁眼和闭眼状态的64电极脑电生理信号, 采用独立成分分析、滑动时间窗、低分辨率脑电断层溯源、图论等方法和技术进行动态功能连接分析, 展现了睁眼和闭眼两种基线状态下视觉网络、默认网络等功能连接网络随时间的动态变化, 并对动态连接矩阵进行主成分分析得到了在整个时间段内具有代表意义的功能连接模式. 该结论支持和补充了传统稳态脑功能连接的研究, 也将为相关实验设计以及脑电信号临床研究提供基线选择依据.     

皮层脑电的非线性降噪

引入基于对非线性动力学局部线性拟合的局部投影非线性降噪方法对Spragure-Dawley大鼠的皮层脑电进行降噪.为了提高降噪效果，利用返回图法对皮层脑电降噪时所需要的最佳局部邻域尺度进行了估计.首先以被50%的高斯白噪声污染的Lorenz方程x轴为例进行降噪，说明根据降噪理论所编写的计算程序的正确性.然后将此降噪方法分别应用于被麻醉的大鼠的皮层脑电和青霉素溶液诱发癫痫发作的皮层脑电时间序列，并采用非线性预报分析说明降噪的效果. 关键词： 皮层脑电 返回图法 非线性降噪 非线性预报     

静息状态下脑功能连接的磁共振成像研究

静息状态下脑功能连接的磁共振成像研究近年来取得了迅猛发展. 通过对fMRI信号低频涨落成分的同步性分析,可以得到大脑静息态任意脑区的功能连接和多套网络系统,其中“默认网络”的发现可能为人脑固有网络的研究提供新的思路. 而静息态网络与解剖连接之间可能存在的对应,以及在神经精神疾病患者脑中性质和连接的异常改变,使其具有重要的研究和临床应用价值. 该文总结了静息状态功能磁共振成像的主要研究成果,对静息状态脑功能网络的发现和发展、研究方法、各网络及其特点以及在临床方面的应用进行简单的介绍和分析.     

人脑默认模式网络的动力学行为

大脑具有自适应、自组织、多稳态等重要特征,是典型的复杂系统.人脑在静息态下的关键功能子网络--默认模式网络(DMN)的激活处于多状态间持续跳转的非平衡过程,揭示该过程背后的动力学机制具有重要的科学意义和临床应用前景.本文基于功能磁共振获得的血氧水平依赖(BOLD)信号,建立了DMN吸引子跳转非平衡过程的能量图景、吸引子非联通图、跳转关系网络等;以高级视觉皮层和听觉等皮层活动为例,通过对应激活DMN状态空间的分布,以及XGBoost、深度神经网络等算法验证了DMN状态变化与外部脑区状态的密切依赖关系;通过偏相关、收敛交叉映射等方法分析了DMN内各个脑区之间的相互作用.本文结果有助于理解静息态下大脑内在非平衡过程的动力学机制,以及从动力学的角度探索具有临床意义的脑功能障碍生物标志物.     

基于网络连接度指标的脑梗死患者脑电信号相同步分析

基于图论的脑功能网络分析是近年来的一个研究热点,而相同步分析已被证实为揭示多导联脑电信号之间功能连接的有效工具.针对当脑电采集系统中导联数目较少而不适用于采用图论分析的情况,提出使用基于导联间相同步分析的网络连接度指标研究脑功能网络的关联特性和整体特性.采用新的频带划分方法,将0.5—30 Hz带宽内的脑电信号划分到5个子带上,计算了不同数据长度下各子带分量的网络连接度指标,并对比分析了各子带分量的相对功率.结果表明:在对脑梗死患者的脑电图和正常人的脑电图进行分析时,需要合理的数据长度量化不同动力学系统之间的差异;在合理的数据长度下,在网络连接度指标的区分效果方面,19—24 Hz分量信号优于其他分量,而且仅在19—24 Hz频带上,脑梗死患者组的所有导联出现了与对照组的所有导联相同趋势的变化.研究表明19—24 Hz频带是脑梗死最佳的脑电图诊断频段,可将该频段下的网络连接度指标作为脑梗死辅助诊断的新指标.     

基于多尺度传递熵的脑肌电信号耦合分析

神经运动控制中脑肌电同步特征可以反映皮层与肌肉之间的功能联系. 为定量研究脑电和肌电信号在不同时间尺度上的同步耦合特征, 提出多尺度传递熵方法实现静态握力输出下的脑肌电耦合分析: 对同步采集的头皮脑电信号(EEG) 和表面肌电信号(EMG)进行多尺度化, 计算不同尺度因子下EEG与EMG间的传递熵值, 获取不同耦合方向(EEG→EMG及EMG→EEG)上的非线性脑肌电耦合特征; 进一步计算功能频段下的显著性面积指标, 定量分析不同尺度下皮层肌肉功能耦合强度的差异. 分析结果显示, 静态握力输出时beta频段(15–35 Hz)皮层肌肉功能耦合特征显著, 且beta2频段(25–35 Hz)在不同尺度上EEG→EMG方向的耦合强度大于EMG→EEG方向, 耦合强度最大值和方向间耦合强度差异显著值均出现于较高时间尺度. 研究结果揭示: 皮层肌肉功能耦合具有双向性, 且耦合强度在不同时间尺度和不同功能频段上有所差异, 可利用多尺度传递熵定量刻画大脑皮层与肌肉之间的非线性同步特征及功能联系.     

基于Kendall改进的同步算法癫痫脑网络分析

提出了一种基于Kendall等级相关改进的同步算法IRC(inverse rank correlation).Kendall等级相关是非线性动力学分析的一般化算法,可有效地度量变量间的非线性相关性.复杂网络的研究已逐渐深入到社会科学的各个领域,脑网络的研究已经成为当今脑功能研究的热点.利用改进的IRC算法,基于脑电EEG(electroencephalogram)数据来构建大脑功能性网络.对构建的脑功能网络的度指标进行了分析,以调查癫痫脑功能网络是否异于正常人.结果显示:使用该改进的算法能够对癫痫和正常脑功能网络显著区分,且只需要记录很短的脑电数据.实验结果数据表明,该方法适用于区分癫痫和正常脑组织网络度指标,它可有助于进一步地加深对大脑的神经动力学行为的研究,并为临床诊断提供有效工具.     

基于变分模态分解-传递熵的脑肌电信号耦合分析

皮层肌肉功能耦合是大脑皮层和肌肉组织间的相互作用, 脑肌电信号的多尺度耦合特征可以体现皮层-肌肉间多时空的功能联系. 本文引入变分模态分解并与传递熵结合, 构建变分模态分解-传递熵模型应用于脑肌间耦合研究. 首先基于变分模态分解将同步采集的脑电(EEG) 和肌电(EMG) 信号分别进行时频尺度化, 然后计算不同时频尺度间的传递熵值, 获取不同耦合方向(EEG→EMG 及EMG→EEG) 上不同尺度间的非线性耦合特征. 结果表明, 在静态握力输出条件下, 皮层与肌肉beta (15—35 Hz) 频段间的耦合强度最为显著; EEG→EMG 方向上脑电与肌电高gamma (50—72 Hz) 频段的耦合强度总体上高于EMG→EEG 方向.研究结果揭示皮层-肌肉功能耦合具有双向性, 且脑肌间不同耦合方向上、不同频段间的耦合强度有所差异.因此可利用变分模态分解-传递熵方法定量刻画大脑皮层与肌肉各时频段之间的非线性同步特征及功能联系.     

复杂网络系统拓扑连接优化控制方法

为了增加实际网络系统连接增益、减少网络连接成本, 提出了一种基于网络效率和平均连接度的网络拓扑连接优化控制方法, 该方法利用网络效率来表征网络连接收益、用网络平均连接度来表征网络连接成本, 并提出了其计算优化算法, 该算法的时间复杂性为O(Mpn²). 实验分析表明, 可以采取一定的方式对实际复杂网络拓扑连接进行优化控制, 小世界和无标度网络均存在一个最佳的网络平均度值能够使网络连接增益达到最大. 关键词： 复杂网络 拓扑连接 优化控制 连接增益     

基于复杂度的针刺脑电信号特征提取

为探究针灸刺激对大脑活动产生的影响,文章设计了4种针刺频率针刺右腿足三里穴获取脑电的实验.首次采用排序递归图和关联维数方法提取针刺脑电信号的复杂度参数来反映针刺大脑的功能状态,并基于这些方法研究了针刺作用对大脑功能区域的影响以及不同针刺频率与脑电复杂度的相关性.发现针刺时脑电的复杂度高于针刺前,尤以频率为100次/min的针刺影响最为明显;从FP2, F7, T3导联脑电中提取的确定性指标(DET)可作为区分针刺状态与针刺前状态的一种特征参数. 关键词： 针灸 脑电 排序递归图 关联维数     

Statistical properties of Chinese phonemic networks

The study of properties of speech sound systems is of great significance in understanding the human cognitive mechanism and the working principles of speech sound systems. Some properties of speech sound systems, such as the listener-oriented feature and the talker-oriented feature, have been unveiled with the statistical study of phonemes in human languages and the research of the interrelations between human articulatory gestures and the corresponding acoustic parameters. With all the phonemes of speech sound systems treated as a coherent whole, our research, which focuses on the dynamic properties of speech sound systems in operation, investigates some statistical parameters of Chinese phoneme networks based on real text and dictionaries. The findings are as follows: phonemic networks have high connectivity degrees and short average distances; the degrees obey normal distribution and the weighted degrees obey power law distribution; vowels enjoy higher priority than consonants in the actual operation of speech sound systems; the phonemic networks have high robustness against targeted attacks and random errors. In addition, for investigating the structural properties of a speech sound system, a statistical study of dictionaries is conducted, which shows the higher frequency of shorter words and syllables and the tendency that the longer a word is, the shorter the syllables composing it are. From these structural properties and dynamic properties one can derive the following conclusion: the static structure of a speech sound system tends to promote communication efficiency and save articulation effort while the dynamic operation of this system gives preference to reliable transmission and easy recognition. In short, a speech sound system is an effective, efficient and reliable communication system optimized in many aspects.     

Hierarchical features of large-scale cortical connectivity

The analysis of complex networks has revealed patterns of organization in a variety of natural and artificial systems, including neuronal networks of the brain at multiple scales. In this paper, we describe a novel analysis of the large-scale connectivity between regions of the mammalian cerebral cortex, utilizing a set of hierarchical measurements proposed recently. We examine previously identified functional clusters of brain regions in macaque visual cortex and cat cortex and find significant differences between such clusters in terms of several hierarchical measures, revealing differences in how these clusters are embedded in the overall cortical architecture. For example, the ventral cluster of visual cortex maintains structurally more segregated, less divergent connections than the dorsal cluster, which may point to functionally different roles of their constituent brain regions.     

Disentangling the effects of phonation and articulation: Hemispheric asymmetries in the auditory N1m response of the human brain

Background  

The cortical activity underlying the perception of vowel identity has typically been addressed by manipulating the first and second formant frequency (F1 & F2) of the speech stimuli. These two values, originating from articulation, are already sufficient for the phonetic characterization of vowel category. In the present study, we investigated how the spectral cues caused by articulation are reflected in cortical speech processing when combined with phonation, the other major part of speech production manifested as the fundamental frequency (F0) and its harmonic integer multiples. To study the combined effects of articulation and phonation we presented vowels with either high (/a/) or low (/u/) formant frequencies which were driven by three different types of excitation: a natural periodic pulseform reflecting the vibration of the vocal folds, an aperiodic noise excitation, or a tonal waveform. The auditory N1m response was recorded with whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) from ten human subjects in order to resolve whether brain events reflecting articulation and phonation are specific to the left or right hemisphere of the human brain.     

Modelling Human Cortical Network in Real Brain Space

Highly specific structural organization is of great significance in the topology of cortical networks. We introduce a human cortical network model, taking the specific cortical structure into account, in which nodes are brain sites placed in the actual positions of cerebral cortex and the establishment of edges depends on the spatial path length rather than the linear distance. The resulting network exhibits the essential features of cortical connectivity, properties of small-world networks and multiple clusters structure. Additionally, assortative mixing is also found in this model. All of these findings may be attributed to the specific cortical architecture.     

Learning alters theta amplitude, theta-gamma coupling and neuronal synchronization in inferotemporal cortex

Background

How oscillatory brain rhythms alone, or in combination, influence cortical information processing to support learning has yet to be fully established. Local field potential and multi-unit neuronal activity recordings were made from 64-electrode arrays in the inferotemporal cortex of conscious sheep during and after visual discrimination learning of face or object pairs. A neural network model has been developed to simulate and aid functional interpretation of learning-evoked changes.

Results

Following learning the amplitude of theta (4-8 Hz), but not gamma (30-70 Hz) oscillations was increased, as was the ratio of theta to gamma. Over 75% of electrodes showed significant coupling between theta phase and gamma amplitude (theta-nested gamma). The strength of this coupling was also increased following learning and this was not simply a consequence of increased theta amplitude. Actual discrimination performance was significantly correlated with theta and theta-gamma coupling changes. Neuronal activity was phase-locked with theta but learning had no effect on firing rates or the magnitude or latencies of visual evoked potentials during stimuli. The neural network model developed showed that a combination of fast and slow inhibitory interneurons could generate theta-nested gamma. By increasing N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor sensitivity in the model similar changes were produced as in inferotemporal cortex after learning. The model showed that these changes could potentiate the firing of downstream neurons by a temporal desynchronization of excitatory neuron output without increasing the firing frequencies of the latter. This desynchronization effect was confirmed in IT neuronal activity following learning and its magnitude was correlated with discrimination performance.

Conclusions

Face discrimination learning produces significant increases in both theta amplitude and the strength of theta-gamma coupling in the inferotemporal cortex which are correlated with behavioral performance. A network model which can reproduce these changes suggests that a key function of such learning-evoked alterations in theta and theta-nested gamma activity may be increased temporal desynchronization in neuronal firing leading to optimal timing of inputs to downstream neural networks potentiating their responses. In this way learning can produce potentiation in neural networks simply through altering the temporal pattern of their inputs.     

Estimation of the effective and functional human cortical connectivity with structural equation modeling and directed transfer function applied to high-resolution EEG

Different brain imaging devices are presently available to provide images of the human functional cortical activity, based on hemodynamic, metabolic or electromagnetic measurements. However, static images of brain regions activated during particular tasks do not convey the information of how these regions are interconnected. The concept of brain connectivity plays a central role in the neuroscience, and different definitions of connectivity, functional and effective, have been adopted in literature. While the functional connectivity is defined as the temporal coherence among the activities of different brain areas, the effective connectivity is defined as the simplest brain circuit that would produce the same temporal relationship as observed experimentally among cortical sites. The structural equation modeling (SEM) is the most used method to estimate effective connectivity in neuroscience, and its typical application is on data related to brain hemodynamic behavior tested by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), whereas the directed transfer function (DTF) method is a frequency-domain approach based on both a multivariate autoregressive (MVAR) modeling of time series and on the concept of Granger causality.

This study presents advanced methods for the estimation of cortical connectivity by applying SEM and DTF on the cortical signals estimated from high-resolution electroencephalography (EEG) recordings, since these signals exhibit a higher spatial resolution than conventional cerebral electromagnetic measures. To estimate correctly the cortical signals, we used a subject's multicompartment head model (scalp, skull, dura mater, cortex) constructed from individual MRI, a distributed source model and a regularized linear inverse source estimates of cortical current density. Before the application of SEM and DTF methodology to the cortical waveforms estimated from high-resolution EEG data, we performed a simulation study, in which different main factors (signal-to-noise ratio, SNR, and simulated cortical activity duration, LENGTH) were systematically manipulated in the generation of test signals, and the errors in the estimated connectivity were evaluated by the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The statistical analysis returned that during simulations, both SEM and DTF estimators were able to correctly estimate the imposed connectivity patterns under reasonable operative conditions, that is, when data exhibit an SNR of at least 3 and a LENGTH of at least 75 s of nonconsecutive EEG recordings at 64 Hz of sampling rate.

Hence, effective and functional connectivity patterns of cortical activity can be effectively estimated under general conditions met in any practical EEG recordings, by combining high-resolution EEG techniques and linear inverse estimation with SEM or DTF methods. We conclude that the estimation of cortical connectivity can be performed not only with hemodynamic measurements, but also with EEG signals treated with advanced computational techniques.     

Adaptive control of vowel formant frequency: evidence from real-time formant manipulation

Auditory feedback during speech production is known to play a role in speech sound acquisition and is also important for the maintenance of accurate articulation. In two studies the first formant (F1) of monosyllabic consonant-vowel-consonant words (CVCs) was shifted electronically and fed back to the participant very quickly so that participants perceived the modified speech as their own productions. When feedback was shifted up (experiment 1 and 2) or down (experiment 1) participants compensated by producing F1 in the opposite frequency direction from baseline. The threshold size of manipulation that initiated a compensation in F1 was usually greater than 60 Hz. When normal feedback was returned, F1 did not return immediately to baseline but showed an exponential deadaptation pattern. Experiment 1 showed that this effect was not influenced by the direction of the F1 shift, with both raising and lowering of F1 exhibiting the same effects. Experiment 2 showed that manipulating the number of trials that F1 was held at the maximum shift in frequency (0, 15, 45 trials) did not influence the recovery from adaptation. There was a correlation between the lag-one autocorrelation of trial-to-trial changes in F1 in the baseline recordings and the magnitude of compensation. Some participants therefore appeared to more actively stabilize their productions from trial-to-trial. The results provide insight into the perceptual control of speech and the representations that govern sensorimotor coordination.     

A conditional Granger causality model approach for group analysis in functional magnetic resonance imaging

Granger causality model (GCM) derived from multivariate vector autoregressive models of data has been employed to identify effective connectivity in the human brain with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and to reveal complex temporal and spatial dynamics underlying a variety of cognitive processes. In the most recent fMRI effective connectivity measures, pair-wise GCM has commonly been applied based on single-voxel values or average values from special brain areas at the group level. Although a few novel conditional GCM methods have been proposed to quantify the connections between brain areas, our study is the first to propose a viable standardized approach for group analysis of fMRI data with GCM. To compare the effectiveness of our approach with traditional pair-wise GCM models, we applied a well-established conditional GCM to preselected time series of brain regions resulting from general linear model (GLM) and group spatial kernel independent component analysis of an fMRI data set in the temporal domain. Data sets consisting of one task-related and one resting-state fMRI were used to investigate connections among brain areas with the conditional GCM method. With the GLM-detected brain activation regions in the emotion-related cortex during the block design paradigm, the conditional GCM method was proposed to study the causality of the habituation between the left amygdala and pregenual cingulate cortex during emotion processing. For the resting-state data set, it is possible to calculate not only the effective connectivity between networks but also the heterogeneity within a single network. Our results have further shown a particular interacting pattern of default mode network that can be characterized as both afferent and efferent influences on the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex. These results suggest that the conditional GCM approach based on a linear multivariate vector autoregressive model can achieve greater accuracy in detecting network connectivity than the widely used pair-wise GCM, and this group analysis methodology can be quite useful to extend the information obtainable in fMRI.     

Coherent periodic activity in excitatory Erdös-Renyi neural networks: the role of network connectivity

In this article, we investigate the role of connectivity in promoting coherent activity in excitatory neural networks. In particular, we would like to understand if the onset of collective oscillations can be related to a minimal average connectivity and how this critical connectivity depends on the number of neurons in the networks. For these purposes, we consider an excitatory random network of leaky integrate-and-fire pulse coupled neurons. The neurons are connected as in a directed Erdo?s-Renyi graph with average connectivity scaling as a power law with the number of neurons in the network. The scaling is controlled by a parameter γ, which allows to pass from massively connected to sparse networks and therefore to modify the topology of the system. At a macroscopic level, we observe two distinct dynamical phases: an asynchronous state corresponding to a desynchronized dynamics of the neurons and a regime of partial synchronization (PS) associated with a coherent periodic activity of the network. At low connectivity, the system is in an asynchronous state, while PS emerges above a certain critical average connectivity (c). For sufficiently large networks, (c) saturates to a constant value suggesting that a minimal average connectivity is sufficient to observe coherent activity in systems of any size irrespectively of the kind of considered network: sparse or massively connected. However, this value depends on the nature of the synapses: reliable or unreliable. For unreliable synapses, the critical value required to observe the onset of macroscopic behaviors is noticeably smaller than for reliable synaptic transmission. Due to the disorder present in the system, for finite number of neurons we have inhomogeneities in the neuronal behaviors, inducing a weak form of chaos, which vanishes in the thermodynamic limit. In such a limit, the disordered systems exhibit regular (non chaotic) dynamics and their properties correspond to that of a homogeneous fully connected network for any γ-value. Apart for the peculiar exception of sparse networks, which remain intrinsically inhomogeneous at any system size.     

Differentiation of speech and nonspeech processing within primary auditory cortex

Primary auditory cortex (PAC), located in Heschl's gyrus (HG), is the earliest cortical level at which sounds are processed. Standard theories of speech perception assume that signal components are given a representation in PAC which are then matched to speech templates in auditory association cortex. An alternative holds that speech activates a specialized system in cortex that does not use the primitives of PAC. Functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed different brain activation patterns in listening to speech and nonspeech sounds across different levels of complexity. Sensitivity to speech was observed in association cortex, as expected. Further, activation in HG increased with increasing levels of complexity with added fundamentals for both nonspeech and speech stimuli, but only for nonspeech when separate sources (release bursts/fricative noises or their nonspeech analogs) were added. These results are consistent with the existence of a specialized speech system which bypasses more typical processes at the earliest cortical level.