Chapter 6

EEG and EMG

Electroencephalography (EEG)
Electroencephalograms are recordings of electrical potentials produced by brain. Generally, EEG refers to the measurement of the electrical activity produced by the brain. In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity in the time-domain as recorded from multiple electrodes placed on the scalp. Richard Caton published the first account documenting the recording of spontaneous brain electrical activity from the celebral cortex of an experimental animal in 1875.
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Electroencephalography (EEG)
In 1924, Hans Berger carried out the first human EEG recordings using metal strips pasted to the scalps of his subjects as electrodes and galvanometer as the recording instrument. Berger was the first to use the word electroencephalogram in describing these brain potentials in humans. Adrian and Matthews identified the alpha rhythm (10-12 Hz).

EEG Recording
Scalp recordings of spontaneous neuronal activity in the brain allow measurement of potential changes over time between a signal electrode and a reference electrode. EEG is extremely difficult for an untrained observer to interpret compared with electrocardiogram. The International Federation in Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology adopted the 10-20 electrode placement system.

Clinical EEG

The 10-20 Electrode System

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EEG Recording
In most clinical applications, 19 recording electrodes are used. Additional electrodes can be added up to 256 electrodes (high-density arrays).

EEG Recording
EEG system consists of electrodes, amplifiers (with filters) and a recording device. Commonly used scale electrodes consist of AgAgCl disks, 1-3 mm in diameter, with long flexible leads that can plugged into an amplifier. Much of the EEG information of interest lies below 40Hz, thus low-pass filters can be used to eliminate unwanted signals above 40 Hz. Low-pass filter filters out high-frequency artifacts such as electromyographic (EMG) signals.
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EEG Recording
The EEG is converted to digital signals using Analog-to-Digital converter. The resolution of the A/D converter is determined by the smallest amplitude that can be sampled. This is determined by dividing the voltage range of the A/D by 2 raised to the power of the number of bits of the A/D converter. For example, an A/D converter with a range of 5V and 12 bit resolution can resolve sample 8 amplitude as small as 2.4mV.

EEG Recording
Sufficient sampling rate (at least twice the highest frequency component of interest in the sampled signal) is used to represent all the information in the EEG waveform. To ensure that the signal is band-limited, a lowpass filter with a cutoff frequency equal to the highest frequency of interest is used. The sampling rate is usually set to twice the cutoff frequency of the filter or more.
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EEG Recording
Most of the EEG are digitized via an analogto-digital converter (ADC) with a sampling rate at 256-512Hz. A sampling rate of up to 20KHz are used in some research applications. A typical adult human EEG signal is about 10V to 100V in amplitude when measure from the scalp.

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EEG Wave Patterns

EEG is described in terms of rhythmic activity (bands of frequency). Delta is the frequency up to 3 Hz. It tends to be the highest in amplitude and the slowest waves. It is seen normally in adults in slow wave sleep and in babies.

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EEG Wave Patterns

Theta is the frequency range between 4 Hz and 7 Hz. It is seen normally in young children and meditation.

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EEG Wave Patterns

Alpha is the frequency range from 8 Hz to 12 Hz. It is brought out by closing the eyes and by relaxation.

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EEG Wave Patterns

Beta is the frequency range from 12 Hz to about 30 Hz. It is associated with active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration.

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EEG Wave Patterns

Gamma is the frequency range approximately 26-100 Hz. It is present when carrying out a certain cognitive or motor function.

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Sleep Patterns
When an individual in a relaxed, inattentive state becomes drowsy and falls asleep, the alpha rhythm is replaced by slower, larger waves. In deep sleep, very large, somewhat irregular delta waves are observed. EEG exhibits a paradoxical rapid eyemovement (REM) sleep pattern, which generally reports that the individual is dreaming.

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Sleep Patterns

The electroencephalographic changes that occur as a human subject goes to sleep.

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Abnormal EEG
Important clinical use of EEG is to diagnose different types of epilepsy and location of the focus in the brain causing epilepsy. Epilepsy is characterized by uncontrolled excessive activity by either a part or all of the central nervous system. It is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures Two basic types of epilepsy: generalized and partial. Generalized epilepsy involves the entire brain at once, while partial epilepsy involves a portion 18 of the brain.

Abnormal EEG

Generalized epilepsy

Partial epilepsy

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Frequency Analysis of the EEG

An individual FFT is ordinarily calculated for a short section of EEG data (i.e. 1-8 seconds), providing a consistent estimator of the power spectrum. The power spectral density (PSD) is computed based on the FFT of the EEG signal.

1 2 PSD X ( f ) T
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Frequency Analysis of the EEG

Spectral estimation for the pink noise case using DFT Adopted from [Smith, 1981]

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Frequency Analysis of the EEG

Normalized power density spectra of the cortical EEG from a single cat during waking, slow-wave sleep and REM sleep. Adopted from [Bronzino, 1984]

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Electromyography (EMG)
EMG is technique for evaluating and recording the activation signal of muscles. EMG detects the electrical potential generated by muscle cells when these cells contract and also when the cells are at rest. Measured EMG potentials range between less than 50 V and up to 20-30mV depending on the muscle under observation. Typical repetition rate of muscle unit firing is about 7-20 Hz. Two types of EMG: needle (intramuscular) EMG and surface EMG.
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Electromyography (EMG)
Three types of needle EMG: concentric electrode, single-fiber, macro. Needle EMG requires a needle electrode to be inserted through the skin into the muscle tissue. It provides valuable information about the state of the muscle and its innervating nerve. Because skeletal muscles differ in the inner structure, the electrode has to be placed at various locations to obtain accurate study. It is invasive. Surface EMG is used to monitor the general picture of muscle activation.
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Electromyography (EMG)
Muscle tissue at rest is normally electrically inactive. When the muscle is voluntarily contracted, action potentials begin to appear. As the strength of the muscle contraction is increased, more and more muscle fibers produce action potentials. When the muscle is fully contracted, there should appear a disorderly group of action potentials of varying rates and amplitudes.

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Electromyography (EMG)
The sum of all electrical activity of a motor unit is known as a motor unit action potential (MUAP). EMG signals are made up of superimposed MUAPs from several motor units. The measured EMG signals can be decomposed into their consitituent MUAPs. MUAPs from different motor units tend to have different characteristic shapes, while MUAPs recorded by the same electrode from the same motor unit are typically similar.

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Electromyography (EMG)
The frequency of interest of EMG can be up to 1kHz. Thus the sampling can be 2KHz or higher. Signal processing techniques: power spectral density, FFT, autoregressive method (Linear Predictive analysis) and so on.

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Electromyography (EMG)

(a) PSD for subject 1

(b) PSD for subject 2

(c) PSD for subject 3

Adopted from [Kwanty et al, 1970]

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Electromyography (EMG)

(a) Spectrum of EMG segment calculated by FFT (b) Spectrum predicted by autoregressive method Adopted from [Inbar and Noujaim, 1984]
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Electromyography (EMG)

Spectrum predicted by autoregressive method fpr various of model orders Adopted from [Paiss and Inbar, 1987]
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References
Bronzino J.D. (Editors) (2006). The Biomedical Engineering Handbook. CRC Press. Bronzino, J.D. (1984). Quantitative analysis of the EEG-general concepts and animal studies. IEEE Transaction on Biomedical Engineering, 31:850-856. Inbar G.F. and Noujaim A.E. (1984). On surface EMG spectral characterization and its application to diagnostic classification. IEEE Transaction on Biomedical Engineering, 31:597-604. Kwanty, E., Thomas D.H. and Kwanty H.G. (1970). An application of signal processing techniques to the study of myoelectric signals. IEEE Transaction on Biomedical Engineering, 17:303-313. Paiss O. and Inbar G.F. (1987). Autoregressive modelling of surface EMG and its spectrum with application to fatigue. IEEE Transaction on Biomedical Engineering, 34:761-770. Smith W. (1981). Walsh versus Fourier estimator of the EEG power spectrum IEEE Transaction on Biomedical Engineering, 28:790-973. Webster, J.G. (Editors) (2010). Medical Instrumentation: Application and Design. 4th Edition, John Wiley & Sons. Wikipedia website.
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