Determination of human EEG alpha entrainment ERD/ERS using the continuous complex wavelet transform

摘要

Alpha entrainment caused by exposure to a background stimulus continuously flickering at a rate of 8 1/3 Hz was affected by the appearance of a foreground target stimulus to which the subjects were requested to press a button. With the use of bipolar derivations (to reduce volume conduction effects), scalp recorded EEG potentials were subjected to a continuous wavelet transform using complex Morlet wavelets at a range of scales. Complex Morlet wavelets were used to efficiently calculate instantaneous amplitudes and phases on a per-trial basis. Multiple scales were employed to contrast the pattern of alpha activity with those in other bands, and to determine whether the harmonics observed in the spectral analysis of the data were simply a result of the non-sinusoidal response to the entraining signal or a distinct neural phenomenon. We were thus able to calculate desynchronization/resynchronization for both the entrained and non-entrained alpha activity. The occurrence of the target stimulus caused a sharp increase in amplitude in both the entrained and non-entrained alpha activity, followed by a sharp decrease, and then a return to baseline, over a period of 2.5 seconds. However, the entrained alpha activity showed a much more rapid recovery than non-entrained activity.