Inter-hemispheric electroencephalography coherence analysis: Assessing brain activity during monotonous driving

Abstract

The current study investigated the effect of monotonous driving on inter-hemispheric electroencephalography (EEG) coherence. Twenty-four non-professional drivers were recruited to perform a fatigue instigating monotonous driving task while 30 channels of EEG were simultaneously recorded. The EEG recordings were then divided into 5 equal sections over the entire driving period for analysis. Inter-hemispheric coherence was computed from 5 homologous EEG electrode pairs (FP1–FP2, C3–C4, T7–T8, P7–P8, and O1–O2) for delta, theta, alpha and beta frequency bands. Results showed that frontal and occipital inter-hemispheric coherence values were significantly higher than central, parietal, and temporal sites for all four frequency bands ( p < 0.0001). In the alpha frequency band, significant difference was found between earlier and later driving sections ( p = 0.02). The coherence values in all EEG frequency bands were slightly increased at the end of the driving session, except for FP1–FP2 electrode pair, which showed no significant change in coherence in the beta frequency band at the end of the driving session.