Guido Nolte

Dept. of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology
University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
Hamburg
Germany

Methods of EEG and MEG data analysis: interpretation versus exploitation
Lecture Abstract:

" Whether a specific method to analyze EEG or MEG data is useful or not depends  on the goal. A method used for a BCI application or as a diagnostic tool could be based on an idea about what brain function the calculuated quantity is supposed to represent (e.g. brain connectivity), but in the end it doesn't really matter whether the neuroscientific interpretation is correct or not. In this talk, I will present some linear and nonlinear methods to study brain coupling and I will discuss whether such methods are useful beyond correct interpretation. In particular,   I will argue that cross-frequency coupling, observed as coupling between alpha and beta rhythms, is a useful tool for diagnostic purposes. The main reason for this is that it combines two properties: a) it does not depend on overall signal amplitude, which is variable across subjects, and b) it is non-trivial also as a univariate measure, which are typically more stable than multivariate measures.  In this talk, I will also argue that coupling analysis, even though it can be useful for diagnostic purposes,  is probably useless for applications like BCI which require results on short time intervals."