MRI: Acquisition of an EEG-NIRs Bimodal Neural Signal Recording System

翻译后摘要：这主要的研究仪器（MRI）补助金支持收购的神经记录系统，集成脑电图（EEG）和近红外光谱（NIR）一起提供双峰数据收集和分析。该系统的收购使跨生物医学电气工程，计算机科学和神经心理学领域的教师研究人员能够共同努力，开发多学科研究和教育活动。提出了多个研究项目，以调查基本的挑战，在EEG-NIR的双峰信号采集及其在医疗保健，医疗仪器，脑机接口的广泛应用。研究生和本科生，包括少数民族，将参加拟议的研究项目。沃瑟尔大学位于宾夕法尼亚州切斯特市，在过去的几十年里，这里有大量的人口来自代表性不足的群体，并经历了严重的经济萧条。研究人员将与两个当地教育项目合作，让一群95%以上来自代表性不足群体的初中/高中学生参与进来，激励他们接受科学、技术、工程、和数学（STEM）领域。该资助的目标是获得BrainVision EEG-NIR双峰神经记录系统，该系统集成了32-通道BrainVision有源通道放大器EEG和32通道NIRScout NIRs。EEG被广泛用于测量神经活动，具有高的时间分辨率但空间特异性差。近红外光谱是一种非侵入性光学成像技术，可测量人类皮质浅层大脑活动期间脱氧血红蛋白和氧合血红蛋白的浓度变化。近红外光谱可以测量与神经活动相关的代谢变化，其空间分辨率高于脑电图，这促使人们努力将近红外光谱和脑电图结合在一起，以探索彼此互补的信息。该双模态系统将用于开发双模态脑计算机接口、基亚里畸形手术后症状复发的计算机辅助诊断和治疗，以及运动相关脑震荡的早期诊断。NIR设备还将用于定量评估用于靶向脑低温的新型冷却设备，并开发新技术来测量新血液透析机的流量分布。该系统和相关研究将促进我们对EEG和NIR在不同应用领域的组合的潜在益处的理解。对单个模态和组合模态下的数据特征的研究将产生数据复杂性、特征平稳性和模态间干扰的新发现。将开发新的数据处理方法来执行伪影去除、信息融合、自适应学习和分类以及功能网络映射和动态建模。这些研究项目将产生定量结果，以证明预期的改进，并为未来开发多模式神经成像系统提供可扩展的平台。

Abstract:This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant supports the acquisition of a neural recording system that integrates electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRs) together to provide bimodal data collection and analysis. The acquisition of this system enables faculty researchers across Biomedical & Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Neuropsychology fields to work together and develop multidisciplinary research and educational activities. Multiple research projects are proposed to investigate fundamental challenges in EEG-NIRs bimodal signal acquisition and its widespread applications in healthcare, medical instrument, and brain computer interface. Graduate and undergraduate students, including minorities, will participate in the proposed research projects. Widener University is located in Chester, Pennsylvania, which has a large population from underrepresented groups and undergoing significant economic depression in the last decades. The researchers will work with two local educational programs to involve a group of middle/high school students over 95% of whom are from underrepresented groups, inspiring them to pursue college education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.The goal of this grant is to acquire a BrainVision EEG-NIRs bimodal neural recording system that integrates a 32-channel BrainVision active channel amplifier EEG and a 32-channel NIRScout NIRs together. EEG is widely used to measure neural activity with a high temporal resolution but poor spatial specificity. NIRs is a noninvasive optical imaging technique that measures concentration changes of deoxygenated hemoglobin and oxygenated hemoglobin during brain activity in superficial layers of the human cortex. NIRs can measure metabolic changes associated with the neural activity with a higher spatial resolution than EEG, and this has prompted the effort to combine NIRs and EEG together to explore complementary information to each other. The bimodal system will be use for the development of a bimodal brain computer interface, computer-aided diagnosis and treatment of symptom recurrence after Chiari malformation surgery, and early diagnosis of sports-related concussion. The NIRs device will also be used to quantitatively evaluate a novel cooling device for targeted brain hypothermia, and to develop novel techniques to measure the flow distribution of a new hemodialysis machine. The system and associated research will advance our understanding of potential benefits from the combination of EEG and NIRs on different application fields. The study of data characteristics under the individual and combined modalities will generate new findings of data complexity, feature stationarity, and inter-modality interference. Novel data processing methods will be developed to perform artifacts removal, information fusion, adaptive learning and classification, and functional network mapping and dynamic modeling. The research projects will generate quantitative results to justify the expected improvement, and provide an extensible platform for future development of multimodal neuroimaging systems.