Changes in EEG mean frequency and spectral purity during spontaneous alpha blocking

Abstract

Spontaneously occurring brief periods of lower voltage irregular activity occurring amid a background of alpha activity (i.e., alpha blocking) in eyes-closed resting occipital EEG recordings from 32 healthy human subjects have been investigated to determine the extent of changes of mean frequency and of spectral purity (degree of regularity/irregularity of the EEG activity) during such periods. New methods for determining mean frequency and spectral purity (the latter as a new measure, the Spectral Purity Index, which has a maximum value of 1.0 for a pure sine wave) permit their conjoint evaluation over a 0.5 sec window that is advanced along the EEG in 0.1 sec steps, thus permitting almost continuous feature extraction. The findings indicate that, although spectral purity invariably decreased during the periods of lower voltage irregular activity, the mean frequency remaiend relatively unaltered, i.e., it remained unchanged or it increased or decreased slightly but at most by 2.5 Hz. These results suggest that, at least for the periods of lower voltage irregular activity occurring spontaneously amid an alpha background during eyes-closed occipital EEG recordings, it may be inaccurate (as some authors have already suggested) to use the term ‘low-voltage fast (or beta) activity.’