Mapping the Human Brain in Frequency Band Analysis of Brain Cortex Electroencephalographic Activity for Selected Psychiatric Disorders

• Main Authors: Grzegorz M. Wojcik, Jolanta Masiak, Andrzej Kawiak, Lukasz Kwasniewicz, Piotr Schneider, Nikodem Polak, Anna Gajos-Balinska
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-10-01
• Series: Frontiers in Neuroinformatics
• Subjects: electroencephalography; sLORETA; psychiatric disorders; frequency band analysis; biomarkers; working memory
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fninf.2018.00073/full

There are still no good quantitative methods to be applied in psychiatric diagnosis. The interview is still the main and most important tool in the psychiatrist work. This paper presents the results of electroencephalographic research with the subjects of a group of 30 patients with psychiatric disorders compared to the control group of healthy volunteers. All subjects were solving working memory task. The digit-span working memory task test was chosen as one of the most popular tasks given to subjects with cognitive dysfunctions, especially for the patients with panic disorders, depression (including the depressive phase of bipolar disorder), phobias, and schizophrenia. Having such cohort of patients some results for the subjects with insomnia and Asperger syndrome are also presented. The cortical activity of their brains was registered by the dense array EEG amplifier. Source localization using the photogrammetry station and the sLORETA algorithm was then performed in five EEG frequency bands. The most active Brodmann Areas are indicated. Methodology for mapping the brain and research protocol are presented. The first results indicate that the presented technique can be useful in finding psychiatric disorder neurophysiological biomarkers. The first attempts were made to associate hyperactivity of selected Brodmann Areas with particular disorders.