DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.2348892
title: EEG Alpha Waves dataset

description: <strong>Summary:</strong>

This dataset contains electroencephalographic recordings of subjects in a simple resting-state eyes open/closed experimental protocol. Data were recorded during a pilot experiment taking place in the GIPSA-lab, Grenoble, France, in 2017 [1]. Python code is available at https://github.com/plcrodrigues/Alpha-Waves-Dataset for manipulating the data.

<strong><em>Principal </em></strong><strong><em>Investigators</em>:</strong> Eng. Grégoire CATTAN, Eng. Pedro L. C. RODRIGUES<br>
<strong><em>Scientific Supervisor</em></strong><strong>:</strong> Dr. Marco Congedo

<strong>Introduction :</strong>

The occipital dominant rhythm (commonly referred to as occipital ‘Alpha’) is prominent in occipital and parietal regions when a subject is exempt of visual stimulations, as in the case when keeping the eyes closed (2). In normal subjects its peak frequency is in the range 8-12Hz. The detection of alpha waves on the ongoing electroencephalography (EEG) is a useful indicator of the subject’s level of stress, concentration, relaxation or mental load (3,4) and an easy marker to detect in the recorded signals because of its high signal-to-noise-ratio. This experiment was conducted to provide a simple yet reliable set of EEG signals carrying very distinct signatures on each experimental condition. It can be useful for researchers and students looking for an EEG dataset to perform tests with signal processing and machine learning algorithms. An example of application of this dataset can be seen in (5).

<strong>I.Participants</strong>

A total of 20 volunteers participated in the experiment (7 females), with mean (sd) age 25.8 (5.27) and median 25.5. 18 subjects were between 19 and 28 years old. Two participants with age 33 and 44 were outside this range.

<strong>II.Procedures</strong>

EEG signals were acquired using a standard research grade amplifier (g.USBamp, g.tec, Schiedlberg, Austria) and the EC20 cap equipped with 16 wet electrodes (EasyCap, Herrsching am Ammersee, Germany), placed according to the 10-20 international system. The locations of the electrodes were FP1, FP2, FC5, FC6, FZ, T7, CZ, T8, P7, P3, PZ, P4, P8, O1, Oz, and O2. The reference was placed on the right earlobe and the ground at the AFZ scalp location. The amplifier was linked by USB connection to the PC where the data were acquired by means of the software OpenVibe (6,7). We acquired the data with no digital filter and a sampling frequency of 512 samples per second was used. For ensuing analyses, the experimenter was able to tag the EEG signal using an in-house application based on a C/C++ library (8). The tag were sent by the application to the amplifier through the USB port of the PC. It was then recorded along with the EEG signal as a supplementary channel.

For each recording we provide the age, genre and fatigue of each participant. Fatigue was evaluated by the subjects thanks to a scale ranging from 0 to 10, where 10 represents exhaustion. Each participant underwent one session consisting of ten blocks of ten seconds of EEG data recording. Five blocks were recorded while a subject was keeping his eyes closed (condition 1) and the others while his eyes were open (condition 2). The two conditions were alternated. Before the onset of each block, the subject was asked to close or open his eyes according to the experimental condition. The experimenter then tagged the EEG signal using the in-house application and started a 10-second countdown of a block.

<strong>III.Organization of the dataset</strong>

For each subject we provide a single <em>.mat</em> file containing the complete recording of the session. The file is a 2D-matrix where the rows contain the observations at each time sample. Columns 2 to 17 contain the recordings on each of the 16 EEG electrodes. The first column of the matrix represents the timestamp of each observation and column 18 and 19 contain the triggers for the experimental condition 1 and 2. The rows in column 18 (resp. 19) are filled with zeros, except at the timestamp corresponding to the beginning of the block for condition 1 (resp. 2), when the row gets a value of one.

We supply an online and open-source example working with Python (9).

<strong>IV.References</strong>

1. Cattan G, Andreev A, Mendoza C, Congedo M. The Impact of Passive Head-Mounted Virtual Reality Devices on the Quality of EEG Signals. In Delft: The Eurographics Association; 2018 [cited 2018 Apr 16]. Available from: https://diglib.eg.org:443/handle/10.2312/vriphys20181064

2. Pfurtscheller G, Stancák A, Neuper C. Event-related synchronization (ERS) in the alpha band — an electrophysiological correlate of cortical idling: A review. Int J Psychophysiol. 1996 Nov 1;24(1):39–46.

3. Banquet JP. Spectral analysis of the EEG in meditation. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol. 1973 Aug 1;35(2):143–51.

4. Antonenko P, Paas F, Grabner R, van Gog T. Using Electroencephalography to Measure Cognitive Load. Educ Psychol Rev. 2010 Dec 1;22(4):425–38.

5. Rodrigues PLC, Congedo M, Jutten C. Multivariate Time-Series Analysis Via Manifold Learning. In: 2018 IEEE Statistical Signal Processing Workshop (SSP). 2018. p. 573–7.

6. Renard Y, Lotte F, Gibert G, Congedo M, Maby E, Delannoy V, et al. OpenViBE: An Open-Source Software Platform to Design, Test, and Use Brain–Computer Interfaces in Real and Virtual Environments. Presence Teleoperators Virtual Environ. 2010 Feb 1;19(1):35–53.

7. Arrouët C, Congedo M, Marvie J-E, Lamarche F, Lécuyer A, Arnaldi B. Open-ViBE: A Three Dimensional Platform for Real-Time Neuroscience. J Neurother. 2005 Jul 8;9(1):3–25.

8. Mandal MK. C++ Library for Serial Communication with Arduino [Internet]. 2016 [cited 2018 Dec 15]. Available from :  https://github.com/manashmndl/SerialPort

9. Rodrigues PLC. Alpha-Waves-Dataset [Internet]. Grenoble: GIPSA-lab; 2018. Available from : https://github.com/plcrodrigues/Alpha-Waves-Dataset