Nonlinear brain dynamics as macroscopic manifestation of underlying many-body field dynamics

Neural activity patterns related to behavior occur at many scales in time and space from the atomic and molecular to the whole brain. Patterns form through interactions in both directions, so that the impact of transmitter molecule release can be analyzed to larger scales through synapses, dendrites, neurons, populations and brain systems to behavior, and control of that release can be described step-wise through transforms to smaller scales. Here we explore the feasibility of interpreting neurophysiological data in the context of many-body physics by using tools that physicists have devised to analyze comparable hierarchies in other fields of science. We focus on a mesoscopic level that offers a multi-step pathway between the microscopic functions of neurons and the macroscopic functions of brain systems revealed by hemodynamic imaging. We use electroencephalographic (EEG) records collected from high-density electrode arrays fixed on the epidural surfaces of primary sensory and limbic areas in rabbits and cats trained to discriminate conditioned stimuli (CS) in the various modalities. High temporal resolution of EEG signals with the Hilbert transform gives evidence for diverse intermittent spatial patterns of amplitude (AM) and phase modulations (PM) of carrier waves that repeatedly re-synchronize in the beta and gamma ranges in very short time lags over very long distances. The dominant mechanism for neural interactions by axodendritic synaptic transmission should impose distance-dependent delays on the EEG oscillations owing to finite propagation velocities and sequential synaptic delays. It does not. EEGs show evidence for anomalous dispersion: neural populations have a low velocity range of information and energy transfers, and a high velocity range of the spread of phase transitions. This distinction labels the phenomenon but does not explain it. In this report we analyze these phenomena using concepts of energy dissipation, the maintenance by cortex of multiple ground states corresponding to AM patterns, and the exclusive selection by spontaneous breakdown of symmetry (SBS) of single states in sequential phase transitions.     

Statistics of biophysical signal characteristics and state specificity of the human EEG

The arguments are given that local exponents obtained in multifractal analysis by two methods: wavelet transform modulus maxima (WTMM) and multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MDFA) allow to separate statistically hearts of healthy people and subjects suffering from reduced left ventricle systolic function (NYHA I–III class). Proposed indices of fractality suggest that a signal of human heart rate is a mixture of two processes: monofractal and multifractal ones.     

Multimodal integration of EEG, MEG and fMRI data for the solution of the neuroimage puzzle

In this paper, advanced methods for the modeling of human cortical activity from combined high-resolution electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data are presented. These methods include a subject's multicompartment head model (scalp, skull, dura mater, cortex) constructed from magnetic resonance images, multidipole source model and regularized linear inverse source estimates of cortical current density. Determination of the priors in the resolution of the linear inverse problem was performed with the use of information from the hemodynamic responses of the cortical areas as revealed by block-designed (strength of activated voxels) fMRI. Examples of the application of these methods to the estimation of the time varying cortical current density activity in selected region of interest (ROI) are presented for movement-related high-resolution EEG data.     

基于递归量化分析与支持向量机的癫痫脑电自动检测方法

癫痫脑电信号的自动检测对癫痫的临床诊断与治疗具有重要意义.基于递归图(recurrence plot)的递归量化分析(recurrence quantification analysis,RQA)重现了非线性时间序列的动力学行为,分析了其递归特性,本文提出了基于RQA的癫痫脑电信号特征提取方法.实验结果表明:直接基于RQA特征的癫痫脑电的检测准确率较高,其中直接基于确定率DET的分类准确率可达到90.25%.本文还把提取的RQA特征值和变化系数、波动指数相结合组成特征向量,输入到SVM分类器,实现癫痫脑电信号的自动检测;实验结果表明:该方法的分类准确率可达到99%.     

Common Dynamic Properties of Biosignals During Cognition: Self-Similarity and Chaotic Dynamics of Both Response Times and EEG During Movement Imagery

This study was undertaken to verify whether different output variables or biosignals, measured during performance of a cognitive task, manifest common dynamical properties. Nonlinear properties of both response times (RTs) and electroercephalograms (EEG) were tested. We asked subjects to generate mental images of actions following of auditorily presentation simple phrases suggesting the action. Analysis of RT series combined from many subjects and of EEG records from single subjects clearly manifested self-similarity and chaotic dynamics that provide insights into the self-organization of the brain/behavioral system.     

Existence and stability of limit cycles in a macroscopic neuronal population model

We present rigorous results concerning the existence and stability of limit cycles in a macroscopic model of neuronal activity. The specific model we consider is developed from the Ki set methodology, popularized by Walter Freeman. In particular we focus on a specific reduction of the KII sets, denoted RKII sets. We analyse the unfolding of supercritical Hopf bifurcations via consideration of the normal forms and centre manifold reductions. Subsequently we analyse the global stability of limit cycles on a region of parameter space and this is achieved by applying a new methodology termed Global Analysis of Piecewise Linear Systems. The analysis presented may also be used to consider coupled systems of this type. A number of macroscopic mean-field approaches to modelling human EEG may be considered as coupled RKII networks. Hence developing a theoretical understanding of the onset of oscillations in models of this type has important implications in clinical neuroscience, as limit cycle oscillations have been demonstrated to be critical in the onset of certain types of epilepsy.     

On the Synchronization of EEG Spindle Waves

Based on recently sleeping cellular substrates, a network model synaptically coupled by N three-cell circuits is provided. Simulation results show that: (i) the dynamic behavior of every circuit is chaotic; (ii) the synchronization of the network is incomplete; (iii) the incomplete synchronization can integrate burst firings of cortical cells into waxing-and-wanning EEG spindle waves. These results enlighten us that this kind of incomplete synchronization may integrate microscopic, electrical activities of neurons in billions into macroscopic, functional states in human brain. In addition, the effects of coupling strength, connectional mode and noise to the synchronization are discussed.     

Secret-Key Agreement by Asynchronous EEG over Authenticated Public Channels

In this paper, we propose a new system for a sequential secret key agreement based on 6 performance metrics derived from asynchronously recorded EEG signals using an EMOTIV EPOC+ wireless EEG headset. Based on an extensive experiment in which 76 participants were engaged in one chosen mental task, the system was optimized and rigorously evaluated. The system was shown to reach a key agreement rate of 100%, a key extraction rate of 9%, with a leakage rate of 0.0003, and a mean block entropy per key bit of 0.9994. All generated keys passed the NIST randomness test. The system performance was almost independent of the EEG signals available to the eavesdropper who had full access to the public channel.     

A Two-Branch CNN Fusing Temporal and Frequency Features for Motor Imagery EEG Decoding

With the development of technology and the rise of the meta-universe concept, the brain-computer interface (BCI) has become a hotspot in the research field, and the BCI based on motor imagery (MI) EEG has been widely concerned. However, in the process of MI-EEG decoding, the performance of the decoding model needs to be improved. At present, most MI-EEG decoding methods based on deep learning cannot make full use of the temporal and frequency features of EEG data, which leads to a low accuracy of MI-EEG decoding. To address this issue, this paper proposes a two-branch convolutional neural network (TBTF-CNN) that can simultaneously learn the temporal and frequency features of EEG data. The structure of EEG data is reconstructed to simplify the spatio-temporal convolution process of CNN, and continuous wavelet transform is used to express the time-frequency features of EEG data. TBTF-CNN fuses the features learned from the two branches and then inputs them into the classifier to decode the MI-EEG. The experimental results on the BCI competition IV 2b dataset show that the proposed model achieves an average classification accuracy of 81.3% and a kappa value of 0.63. Compared with other methods, TBTF-CNN achieves a better performance in MI-EEG decoding. The proposed method can make full use of the temporal and frequency features of EEG data and can improve the decoding accuracy of MI-EEG.