Title: A Day In A Brain's Life: Examining Cortical Responses To Events Within Experimental And Natural Environments
Authors: Cullen J.N. Roth1,2 Eswar Damaraju2, David Bridwell2, Sergei Plis2, Siddharth Khullar2, Cota Navin Gupta2, and Vince D. Calhoun2
Affiliations: 1Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New Mexico, 2The Mind Research Network, University of New Mexico
Abstract: Understanding brain function is one of science's holy grails. Although there exists a variety of techniques for measuring brain waves, it has not been possible to measure brain function over the course of a day or in natural environments. It is critical to do this because measurements under natural conditions are likely to provide the greatest benefit and information. Natural electroencephalographic (EEG) responses may provide a measure of alertness or provide assistance with daily communications for immobile patients. In typical EEG studies, cortical responses are measured while subjects are placed in a controlled but constrained environment. The subjects are exposed to a number of unique stimuli designed to elicit reproducible EEG responses that are averaged together to suppress unrelated stimulus activity (assumed noise), generating an event related potential (ERP). For example, a greater average response is observed ~300 ms after stimuli requiring reorienting of attention (i.e. the P300). This evoked potential (and many others) are likely to be also present during normal daily activity, but the ability to examine ERP's in natural settings has become possible only recently with the development of wireless EEG systems. We are exploring the correspondence between ERP's within controlled and natural settings by examining ERP's with the wireless Emotiv EPOC headset using 1) traditional stimuli freely available within BCI2000 software and 2) using naturally occurring stimuli such as the ringing of an office phone. We are currently developing the technology and software required for this study. The results of this work will be presented.