Concealed, Unobtrusive Ear-Centered EEG Acquisition: cEEGrids for Transparent EEG.
Concealed, Unobtrusive Ear-Centered EEG Acquisition: cEEGrids for Transparent EEG.
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DOI：
10.3389/fnhum.2017.00163
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发表时间：
2017
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Debener S
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bleichner MG;Debener S
脑电图（EEG）是一种重要的临床工具，常用于无创性研究人类脑-行为关系。传统上，脑电图信号是通过将电极放置在头皮上，并用胶水、橡皮筋或弹性帽将电极固定在适当的位置来记录的。这种设置可以很好地覆盖头部，但对于自然的日常生活情况下的EEG采集是不切实际的。在此，我们提出透明脑电图的概念。透明脑电图的目标是运动容忍，高度便携，不显眼，几乎不可见的数据采集，对用户日常活动的干扰最小。近年来，人们提出了几种与透明脑电图概念兼容的以耳为中心的脑电图解决方案。我们讨论的工作表明，放置在人耳内和周围的微型电极是一个可行的解决方案，因为它们足够敏感，可以接收来自各种大脑和非大脑来源的电信号。我们还描述了cEEGrid柔性打印传感器阵列，它可以从耳朵周围进行不显眼的多通道EEG采集。在一些验证研究中，我们发现脑电图网格能够记录有意义的连续脑电图、事件相关电位和神经振荡。在这里，我们解释了cEEGrid耳朵-脑电图解决方案的基本原理，提出了可能的用例，并确定了在实现透明脑电图的过程中需要解决的开放问题。
Electroencephalography (EEG) is an important clinical tool and frequently used to study the brain-behavior relationship in humans noninvasively. Traditionally, EEG signals are recorded by positioning electrodes on the scalp and keeping them in place with glue, rubber bands, or elastic caps. This setup provides good coverage of the head, but is impractical for EEG acquisition in natural daily-life situations. Here, we propose the transparent EEG concept. Transparent EEG aims for motion tolerant, highly portable, unobtrusive, and near invisible data acquisition with minimum disturbance of a user's daily activities. In recent years several ear-centered EEG solutions that are compatible with the transparent EEG concept have been presented. We discuss work showing that miniature electrodes placed in and around the human ear are a feasible solution, as they are sensitive enough to pick up electrical signals stemming from various brain and non-brain sources. We also describe the cEEGrid flex-printed sensor array, which enables unobtrusive multi-channel EEG acquisition from around the ear. In a number of validation studies we found that the cEEGrid enables the recording of meaningful continuous EEG, event-related potentials and neural oscillations. Here, we explain the rationale underlying the cEEGrid ear-EEG solution, present possible use cases and identify open issues that need to be solved on the way toward transparent EEG.