Ballistocardiogram Artifact Research Articles

EEG-LLAMAS: A low-latency neurofeedback platform for artifact reduction in EEG-fMRI

Simultaneous EEG-fMRI is a powerful multimodal technique for imaging the brain, but its use in neurofeedback experiments has been limited by EEG noise caused by the MRI environment. Neurofeedback studies typically require analysis of EEG in real time, but EEG acquired inside the scanner is heavily contaminated with ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifact, a high-amplitude artifact locked to the cardiac cycle. Although techniques for removing BCG artifacts do exist, they are either not suited to real-time, low-latency applications, such as neurofeedback, or have limited efficacy. We propose and validate a new open-source artifact removal software called EEG-LLAMAS (Low Latency Artifact Mitigation Acquisition Software), which adapts and advances existing artifact removal techniques for low-latency experiments. We first used simulations to validate LLAMAS in data with known ground truth. We found that LLAMAS performed better than the best publicly-available real-time BCG removal technique, optimal basis sets (OBS), in terms of its ability to recover EEG waveforms, power spectra, and slow wave phase. To determine whether LLAMAS would be effective in practice, we then used it to conduct real-time EEG-fMRI recordings in healthy adults, using a steady state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) task. We found that LLAMAS was able to recover the SSVEP in real time, and recovered the power spectra collected outside the scanner better than OBS. We also measured the latency of LLAMAS during live recordings, and found that it introduced a lag of less than 50 ms on average. The low latency of LLAMAS, coupled with its improved artifact reduction, can thus be effectively used for EEG-fMRI neurofeedback. A limitation of the method is its use of a reference layer, a piece of EEG equipment which is not commercially available, but can be assembled in-house. This platform enables closed-loop experiments which previously would have been prohibitively difficult, such as those that target short-duration EEG events, and is shared openly with the neuroscience community.

Ballistocardiogram suppression in concurrent EEG-MRI by dynamic modeling of heartbeats.

The ballistocardiogram (BCG), the induced electric potentials by the head motion originating from heartbeats, is a prominent source of noise in electroencephalography (EEG) data during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Although methods have been proposed to suppress the BCG artifact, more work considering the variability of cardiac cycles and head motion across time and subjects is needed to provide highly robust correction. Here, a method called “dynamic modeling of heartbeats” (DMH) is proposed to reduce BCG artifacts in EEG data recorded inside an MRI system. The DMH method models BCG artifacts by combining EEG points at time instants with similar dynamics. The modeled BCG artifact is then subtracted from the EEG recording to suppress the BCG artifact. Performance of DMH was tested and specifically compared with the Optimal Basis Set (OBS) method on EEG data recorded inside a 3T MRI system with either no MRI acquisition (Inside‐MRI), echo‐planar imaging (EPI‐EEG), or fast MRI acquisition using simultaneous multi‐slice and inverse imaging methods (SMS‐InI‐EEG). In a steady‐state visual evoked response (SSVEP) paradigm, the 15‐Hz oscillatory neuronal activity at the visual cortex after DMH processing was about 130% of that achieved by OBS processing for Inside‐MRI, SMS‐InI‐EEG, and EPI‐EEG conditions. The DMH method is computationally efficient for suppressing BCG artifacts and in the future may help to improve the quality of EEG data recorded in high‐field MRI systems for neuroscientific and clinical applications.

EEG-fMRI: Ballistocardiogram Artifact Reduction by Surrogate Method for Improved Source Localization.

For the analysis of simultaneous EEG-fMRI recordings, it is vital to use effective artifact removal tools. This applies in particular to the ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifact which is difficult to remove without distorting signals of interest related to brain activity. Here, we documented the use of surrogate source models to separate the artifact-related signals from brain signals with minimal distortion of the brain activity of interest. The artifact topographies used for surrogate separation were created automatically using principal components analysis (PCA-S) or by manual selection of artifact components utilizing independent components analysis (ICA-S). Using real resting-state data from 55 subjects superimposed with simulated auditory evoked potentials (AEP), both approaches were compared with three established BCG artifact removal methods: Blind Source Separation (BSS), Optimal Basis Set (OBS), and a mixture of both (OBS-ICA). Each method was evaluated for its applicability for ERP and source analysis using the following criteria: the number of events surviving artifact threshold scans, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), error of source localization, and signal variance explained by the dipolar model. Using these criteria, PCA-S and ICA-S fared best overall, with highly significant differences to the established methods, especially in source localization. The PCA-S approach was also applied to a single subject Berger experiment performed in the MRI scanner. Overall, the removal of BCG artifacts by the surrogate methods provides a substantial improvement for the analysis of simultaneous EEG-fMRI data compared to the established methods.

Ballistocardiogram artifact removal in simultaneous EEG-fMRI using generative adversarial network

Due to its advantages of high temporal and spatial resolution, the technology of simultaneous electroencephalogram-functional magnetic resonance imaging (EEG-fMRI) acquisition and analysis has attracted much attention, and has been widely used in various research fields of brain science. However, during the fMRI of the brain, ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifacts can seriously contaminate the EEG. As an unpaired problem, BCG artifact removal now remains a considerable challenge. Aiming to provide a solution, this paper proposed a novel modular generative adversarial network (GAN) and corresponding training strategy to improve the network performance by optimizing the parameters of each module. In this manner, we hope to improve the local representation ability of the network model, thereby improving its overall performance and obtaining a reliable generator for BCG artifact removal. Moreover, the proposed method does not rely on additional reference signal or complex hardware equipment. Experimental results show that, compared with multiple methods, the technique presented in this paper can remove the BCG artifact more effectively while retaining essential EEG information.

Unified Retrospective EEG Motion Educated Artefact Suppression for EEG-fMRI to Suppress Magnetic Field Gradient Artefacts During Motion.

The data quality of simultaneously acquired electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (EEG-fMRI) can be strongly affected by motion. Recent work has shown that the quality of fMRI data can be improved by using a Moiré-Phase-Tracker (MPT)-camera system for prospective motion correction. The use of the head position acquired by the MPT-camera-system has also been shown to correct motion-induced voltages, ballistocardiogram (BCG) and gradient artefact residuals separately. In this work we show the concept of an integrated framework based on the general linear model to provide a unified motion informed model of in-MRI artefacts. This model (retrospective EEG motion educated gradient artefact suppression, REEG-MEGAS) is capable of correcting voltage-induced, BCG and gradient artefact residuals of EEG data acquired simultaneously with prospective motion corrected fMRI. In our results, we have verified that applying REEG-MEGAS correction to EEG data acquired during subject motion improves the data quality in terms of motion induced voltages and also GA residuals in comparison to standard Artefact Averaging Subtraction and Retrospective EEG Motion Artefact Suppression. Besides that, we provide preliminary evidence that although adding more regressors to a model may slightly affect the power of physiological signals such as the alpha-rhythm, its application may increase the overall quality of a dataset, particularly when strongly affected by motion. This was verified by analysing the EEG traces, power spectra density and the topographic distribution from two healthy subjects. We also have verified that the correction by REEG-MEGAS improves higher frequency artefact correction by decreasing the power of Gradient Artefact harmonics. Our method showed promising results for decreasing the power of artefacts for frequencies up to 250Hz. Additionally, REEG-MEGAS is a hybrid framework that can be implemented for real time prospective motion correction of EEG and fMRI data. Among other EEG-fMRI applications, the approach described here may benefit applications such as EEG-fMRI neurofeedback and brain computer interface, which strongly rely on the prospective acquisition and application of motion artefact removal.

Automated pipeline for EEG artifact reduction (APPEAR) recorded during fMRI

Objective. Simultaneous electroencephalography-functional magnetic resonance imaging (EEG-fMRI) recordings offer a high spatiotemporal resolution approach to study human brain and understand the underlying mechanisms mediating cognitive and behavioral processes. However, the high susceptibility of EEG to MRI-induced artifacts hinders a broad adaptation of this approach. More specifically, EEG data collected during fMRI acquisition are contaminated with MRI gradients and ballistocardiogram artifacts, in addition to artifacts of physiological origin. There have been several attempts for reducing these artifacts with manual and time-consuming pre-processing, which may result in biasing EEG data due to variations in selecting steps order, parameters, and classification of artifactual independent components. Thus, there is a strong urge to develop a fully automatic and comprehensive pipeline for reducing all major EEG artifacts. In this work, we introduced an open-access toolbox with a fully automatic pipeline for reducing artifacts from EEG data collected simultaneously with fMRI (refer to APPEAR). Approach. The pipeline integrates average template subtraction and independent component analysis to suppress both MRI-related and physiological artifacts. To validate our results, we tested APPEAR on EEG data recorded from healthy control subjects during resting-state (n= 48) and task-based (i.e. event-related-potentials (ERPs); n= 8) paradigms. The chosen gold standard is an expert manual review of the EEG database. Main results. We compared manually and automated corrected EEG data during resting-state using frequency analysis and continuous wavelet transformation and found no significant differences between the two corrections. A comparison between ERP data recorded during a so-called stop-signal task (e.g. amplitude measures and signal-to-noise ratio) also showed no differences between the manually and fully automatic fMRI-EEG-corrected data. Significance. APPEAR offers the first comprehensive open-source toolbox that can speed up advancement of EEG analysis and enhance replication by avoiding experimenters’ preferences while allowing for processing large EEG-fMRI cohorts composed of hundreds of subjects with manageable researcher time and effort.

Data-driven beamforming technique to attenuate ballistocardiogram artefacts in electroencephalography-functional magnetic resonance imaging without detecting cardiac pulses in electrocardiography recordings.

Simultaneous recording of electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a very promising non‐invasive neuroimaging technique. However, EEG data obtained from the simultaneous EEG–fMRI are strongly influenced by MRI‐related artefacts, namely gradient artefacts (GA) and ballistocardiogram (BCG) artefacts. When compared to the GA correction, the BCG correction is more challenging to remove due to its inherent variabilities and dynamic changes over time. The standard BCG correction (i.e., average artefact subtraction [AAS]), require detecting cardiac pulses from simultaneous electrocardiography (ECG) recording. However, ECG signals are also distorted and will become problematic for detecting reliable cardiac peaks. In this study, we focused on a beamforming spatial filtering technique to attenuate all unwanted source activities outside of the brain. Specifically, we applied the beamforming technique to attenuate the BCG artefact in EEG–fMRI, and also to recover meaningful task‐based neural signals during an attentional network task (ANT) which required participants to identify visual cues and respond accurately. We analysed EEG–fMRI data in 20 healthy participants during the ANT, and compared four different BCG corrections (non‐BCG corrected, AAS BCG corrected, beamforming + AAS BCG corrected, beamforming BCG corrected). We demonstrated that the beamforming approach did not only significantly reduce the BCG artefacts, but also significantly recovered the expected task‐based brain activity when compared to the standard AAS correction. This data‐driven beamforming technique appears promising especially for longer data acquisition of sleep and resting EEG–fMRI. Our findings extend previous work regarding the recovery of meaningful EEG signals by an optimized suppression of MRI‐related artefacts.

Ballistocardiogram Artifact Reduction in Simultaneous EEG-fMRI Using Deep Learning

The concurrent recording of electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a technique that has received much attention due to its potential for combined high temporal and spatial resolution. However, the ballistocardiogram (BCG), a large-amplitude artifact caused by cardiac induced movement contaminates the EEG during EEG-fMRI recordings. Removal of BCG in software has generally made use of linear decompositions of the corrupted EEG. This is not ideal as the BCG signal propagates in a manner which is non-linearly dependent on the electrocardiogram (ECG). In this paper, we present a novel method for BCG artifact suppression using recurrent neural networks (RNNs). EEG signals were recovered by training RNNs on the nonlinear mappings between ECG and the BCG corrupted EEG. We evaluated our model's performance against the commonly used Optimal Basis Set (OBS) method at the level of individual subjects, and investigated generalization across subjects. We show that our algorithm can generate larger average power reduction of the BCG at critical frequencies, while simultaneously improving task relevant EEG based classification. The presented deep learning architecture can be used to reduce BCG related artifacts in EEG-fMRI recordings. We present a deep learning approach that can be used to suppress the BCG artifact in EEG-fMRI without the use of additional hardware. This method may have scope to be combined with current hardware methods, operate in real-time and be used for direct modeling of the BCG.

Study of denoising of simultaneous electroencephalogram-functional magnetic resonance imaging signal based on real-time constrained independent components analysis

Simultaneous recording of electroencephalogram (EEG)-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) plays an important role in scientific research and clinical field due to its high spatial and temporal resolution. However, the fusion results are seriously influenced by ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifacts under MRI environment. In this paper, we improve the off-line constrained independent components analysis using real-time technique (rt-cICA), which is applied to the simulated and real resting-state EEG data. The results show that for simulated data analysis, the value of error in signal amplitude (Er) obtained by rt-cICA method was obviously lower than the traditional methods such as average artifact subtraction ( P<0.005). In real EEG data analysis, the improvement of normalized power spectrum (INPS) calculated by rt-cICA method was much higher than other methods ( P<0.005). In conclusion, the novel method proposed by this paper lays the technical foundation for further research on the fusion model of EEG-fMRI.

Clustering-Constrained ICA for Ballistocardiogram Artifacts Removal in Simultaneous EEG-fMRI.

Combination of electroencephalogram (EEG) recording and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) plays a potential role in neuroimaging due to its high spatial and temporal resolution. However, EEG is easily influenced by ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifacts and may cause false identification of the related EEG features, such as epileptic spikes. There are many related methods to remove them, however, they do not consider the time-varying features of BCG artifacts. In this paper, a novel method using clustering algorithm to catch the BCG artifacts' features and together with the constrained ICA (ccICA) is proposed to remove the BCG artifacts. We first applied this method to the simulated data, which was constructed by adding the BCG artifacts to the EEG signal obtained from the conventional environment. Then, our method was tested to demonstrate the effectiveness during EEG and fMRI experiments on 10 healthy subjects. In simulated data analysis, the value of error in signal amplitude (Er) computed by ccICA method was lower than those from other methods including AAS, OBS, and cICA (p < 0.005). In vivo data analysis, the Improvement of Normalized Power Spectrum (INPS) calculated by ccICA method in all electrodes was much higher than AAS, OBS, and cICA methods (p < 0.005). We also used other evaluation index (e.g., power analysis) to compare our method with other traditional methods. In conclusion, our novel method successfully and effectively removed BCG artifacts in both simulated and vivo EEG data tests, showing the potentials of removing artifacts in EEG-fMRI applications.

Removal of BCG artefact from concurrent fMRI-EEG recordings based on EMD and PCA

BackgroundSimultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) acquisitions provide better insight into brain dynamics. Some artefacts due to simultaneous acquisition pose a threat to the quality of the data. One such problematic artefact is the ballistocardiogram (BCG) artefact. MethodsWe developed a hybrid algorithm that combines features of empirical mode decomposition (EMD) with principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce the BCG artefact. The algorithm does not require extra electrocardiogram (ECG) or electrooculogram (EOG) recordings to extract the BCG artefact. ResultsThe method was tested with both simulated and real EEG data of 11 participants. From the simulated data, the similarity index between the extracted BCG and the simulated BCG showed the effectiveness of the proposed method in BCG removal. On the other hand, real data were recorded with two conditions, i.e. resting state (eyes closed dataset) and task influenced (event-related potentials (ERPs) dataset). Using qualitative (visual inspection) and quantitative (similarity index, improved normalized power spectrum (INPS) ratio, power spectrum, sample entropy (SE)) evaluation parameters, the assessment results showed that the proposed method can efficiently reduce the BCG artefact while preserving the neuronal signals. Comparison with existing methodsCompared with conventional methods, namely, average artefact subtraction (AAS), optimal basis set (OBS) and combined independent component analysis and principal component analysis (ICA-PCA), the statistical analyses of the results showed that the proposed method has better performance, and the differences were significant for all quantitative parameters except for the power and sample entropy. ConclusionsThe proposed method does not require any reference signal, prior information or assumption to extract the BCG artefact. It will be very useful in circumstances where the reference signal is not available.

Real-time EEG artifact correction during fMRI using ICA

BackgroundSimultaneous acquisition of EEG and fMRI data results in EEG signal contamination by imaging (MR) and ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifacts. Artifact correction of EEG data for real-time applications, such as neurofeedback studies, is the subject of ongoing research. To date, average artifact subtraction (AAS) is the most widespread real-time method used to partially remove BCG and imaging artifacts without requiring extra hardware equipment; no alternative software-only real time methods for removing EEG artifacts are available. New methodsWe introduce a novel, improved approach for real-time EEG artifact correction during fMRI (rtICA). The rtICA is based on real time independent component analysis (ICA) and it is employed following the AAS method. The rtICA was implemented and validated during EEG and fMRI experiments on healthy subjects. ResultsOur results demonstrate that the rtICA employed after the rtAAS can obtain 98.4% success in detection of eye blinks, 4.4 times larger INPS reductions compared to RecView-corrected data, and effectively reduce motion artifacts, as well as imaging and muscle artifacts, in real time on six healthy subjects. Comparison with existing methodsWe compared our real-time artifact reduction results with the rtAAS and various offline methods using multiple evaluation metrics, including power analysis. Importantly, the rtICA does not affect brain neuronal signals as reflected in EEG bands of interest, including the alpha band. ConclusionsA novel real-time ICA method was proposed for improving the EEG quality signal recorded during fMRI acquisition. The results show substantial reduction of different types of artifacts using real-time ICA method.

Ballistocardiogram artifact correction taking into account physiological signal preservation in simultaneous EEG-fMRI

The ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifact is currently one of the most challenging in the EEG acquired concurrently with fMRI, with correction invariably yielding residual artifacts and/or deterioration of the physiological signals of interest. In this paper, we propose a family of methods whereby the EEG is decomposed using Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and a novel approach for the selection of BCG-related independent components (ICs) is used (PROJection onto Independent Components, PROJIC). Three ICA-based strategies for BCG artifact correction are then explored: 1) BCG-related ICs are removed from the back-reconstruction of the EEG (PROJIC); and 2–3) BCG-related ICs are corrected for the artifact occurrences using an Optimal Basis Set (OBS) or Average Artifact Subtraction (AAS) framework, before back-projecting all ICs onto EEG space (PROJIC-OBS and PROJIC-AAS, respectively). A novel evaluation pipeline is also proposed to assess the methods performance, which takes into account not only artifact but also physiological signal removal, allowing for a flexible weighting of the importance given to physiological signal preservation. This evaluation is used for the group-level parameter optimization of each algorithm on simultaneous EEG-fMRI data acquired using two different setups at 3T and 7T. Comparison with state-of-the-art BCG correction methods showed that PROJIC-OBS and PROJIC-AAS outperformed the others when priority was given to artifact removal or physiological signal preservation, respectively, while both PROJIC-AAS and AAS were in general the best choices for intermediate trade-offs. The impact of the BCG correction on the quality of event-related potentials (ERPs) of interest was assessed in terms of the relative reduction of the standard error (SE) across trials: 26/66%, 32/62% and 18/61% were achieved by, respectively, PROJIC, PROJIC-OBS and PROJIC-AAS, for data collected at 3T/7T. Although more significant improvements were achieved at 7T, the results were qualitatively comparable for both setups, which indicate the wide applicability of the proposed methodologies and recommendations.

"Eyes Open - Eyes Closed" EEG/fMRI data set including dedicated "Carbon Wire Loop" motion detection channels.

This data set contains electroencephalography (EEG) data as well as simultaneous EEG with functional magnetic resonance imaging (EEG/fMRI) data. During EEG/fMRI, the EEG cap was outfitted with a hardware-based add-on consisting of carbon-wire loops (CWL). These yielded six extra׳CWL׳ signals related to Faraday induction of these loops in the main magnetic field “Measurement and reduction of motion and ballistocardiogram artefacts from simultaneous EEG and fMRI recordings” (Masterton et al., 2007) [1].In this data set, the CWL data make it possible to do a direct regression approach to deal with the BCG and specifically He artifact.The CWL-EEG/fMRI data in this paper has been recorded on two MRI scanners with different Helium pump systems (4 subjects on a 3 T TIM Trio and 4 subjects on a 3T VERIO). Separate EEG/fMRI data sets have been recorded for the helium pump ON as well as the helium pump OFF conditions. The EEG-only data (same subjects) has been recorded for a motion artifact-free reference EEG signal outside of the scanner.This paper also links to an EEGlab “EEGLAB: an open source toolbox for analysis of single-trial EEG dynamics including independent component analysis” (Delorme and Makeig, 2004) [2] plugin to perform a CWL regression approach to deal with the He pump artifact, as published in the main paper “Carbon-wire loop based artifact correction outperforms post-processing EEG/fMRI corrections-A validation of a real-time simultaneous EEG/fMRI correction method” (van der Meer et al., 2016) [3].

Polymer thick film technology for improved simultaneous dEEG/MRI recording: Safety and MRI data quality

To develop a 256-channel dense-array electroencephalography (dEEG) sensor net (the Ink-Net) using high-resistance polymer thick film (PTF) technology to improve safety and data quality during simultaneous dEEG/MRI. Heating safety was assessed with temperature measurements in an anthropomorphic head phantom during a 30-min, induced-heating scan at 7T. MRI quality assessment used B1 field mapping and functional MRI (fMRI) retinotopic scans in three humans at 3T. Performance of the 256-channel PTF Ink-Net was compared with a 256-channel MR-conditional copper-wired electroencephalography (EEG) net and to scans with no sensor net. A visual evoked potential paradigm assessed EEG quality within and outside the 3T scanner. Phantom temperature measurements revealed nonsignificant heating (ISO 10974) in the presence of either EEG net. In human B1 field and fMRI scans, the Ink-Net showed greatly reduced cross-modal artifact and less signal degradation than the copper-wired net, and comparable quality to MRI without sensor net. Cross-modal ballistocardiogram artifact in the EEG was comparable for both nets. High-resistance PTF technology can be effectively implemented in a 256-channel dEEG sensor net for MR conditional use at 7T and with significantly improved structural and fMRI data quality as assessed at 3T. Magn Reson Med 77:895-903, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

A real-time method to reduce ballistocardiogram artifacts from EEG during fMRI based on optimal basis sets (OBS)

BackgroundThe simultaneous acquisition of electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides both high temporal and spatial resolution when measuring brain activity. A real-time analysis during a simultaneous EEG–fMRI acquisition is essential when studying neurofeedback and conducting effective brain activity monitoring. However, the ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifacts which are induced by heartbeat-related electrode movements in an MRI scanner severely contaminate the EEG signals and hinder a reliable real-time analysis. New methodThe optimal basis sets (OBS) method is an effective candidate for removing BCG artifacts in a traditional offline EEG–fMRI analysis, but has yet to be applied to a real-time EEG–fMRI analysis. Here, a novel real-time technique based on OBS method (rtOBS) is proposed to remove BCG artifacts on a moment-to-moment basis. Real-time electrocardiogram R-peak detection procedure and sliding window OBS method were adopted. ResultsA series of simulated data was constructed to verify the feasibility of the rtOBS technique. Furthermore, this method was applied to real EEG–fMRI data to remove BCG artifacts. The results of both simulated data and real EEG–fMRI data from eight healthy human subjects demonstrate the effectiveness of rtOBS in both the time and frequency domains. Comparison with existing methodsA comparison between rtOBS and real-time averaged artifact subtraction (rtAAS) was conducted. The results suggest the efficacy and advantage of rtOBS in the real-time removal of BCG artifacts. ConclusionsIn this study, a novel real-time OBS technique was proposed for the real-time removal of BCG artifacts. The proposed method was tested using simulated data and applied to real simultaneous EEG–fMRI data. The results suggest the effectiveness of this method.

Reference-free removal of EEG-fMRI ballistocardiogram artifacts with harmonic regression

Combining electroencephalogram (EEG) recording and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) offers the potential for imaging brain activity with high spatial and temporal resolution. This potential remains limited by the significant ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifacts induced in the EEG by cardiac pulsation-related head movement within the magnetic field. We model the BCG artifact using a harmonic basis, pose the artifact removal problem as a local harmonic regression analysis, and develop an efficient maximum likelihood algorithm to estimate and remove BCG artifacts. Our analysis paradigm accounts for time–frequency overlap between the BCG artifacts and neurophysiologic EEG signals, and tracks the spatiotemporal variations in both the artifact and the signal. We evaluate performance on: simulated oscillatory and evoked responses constructed with realistic artifacts; actual anesthesia-induced oscillatory recordings; and actual visual evoked potential recordings. In each case, the local harmonic regression analysis effectively removes the BCG artifacts, and recovers the neurophysiologic EEG signals. We further show that our algorithm outperforms commonly used reference-based and component analysis techniques, particularly in low SNR conditions, the presence of significant time–frequency overlap between the artifact and the signal, and/or large spatiotemporal variations in the BCG. Because our algorithm does not require reference signals and has low computational complexity, it offers a practical tool for removing BCG artifacts from EEG data recorded in combination with fMRI.

Real-time EEG feedback during simultaneous EEG–fMRI identifies the cortical signature of motor imagery

Motor imagery (MI) combined with real-time electroencephalogram (EEG) feedback is a popular approach for steering brain–computer interfaces (BCI). MI BCI has been considered promising as add-on therapy to support motor recovery after stroke. Yet whether EEG neurofeedback indeed targets specific sensorimotor activation patterns cannot be unambiguously inferred from EEG alone. We combined MI EEG neurofeedback with concurrent and continuous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize the relationship between MI EEG neurofeedback and activation in cortical sensorimotor areas. EEG signals were corrected online from interfering MRI gradient and ballistocardiogram artifacts, enabling the delivery of real-time EEG feedback. Significantly enhanced task-specific brain activity during feedback compared to no feedback blocks was present in EEG and fMRI. Moreover, the contralateral MI related decrease in EEG sensorimotor rhythm amplitude correlated inversely with fMRI activation in the contralateral sensorimotor areas, whereas a lateralized fMRI pattern did not necessarily go along with a lateralized EEG pattern. Together, the findings indicate a complex relationship between MI EEG signals and sensorimotor cortical activity, whereby both are similarly modulated by EEG neurofeedback. This finding supports the potential of MI EEG neurofeedback for motor rehabilitation and helps to better understand individual differences in MI BCI performance.

Comparison of BCG artifact removal methods for evoked responses in simultaneous EEG–fMRI

Simultaneous recording of electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has gained attention due to the complimentary properties of the two imaging modalities. Their combined recording enables the study of brain function while taking advantage of the high temporal resolution of EEG and high spatial resolution of fMRI. However EEG data recorded inside the MR scanner is significantly contaminated by two main sources of artifacts: MR gradient artifacts and ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifacts. Most existing removal approaches for these artifacts fall into two main categories: average artifact subtraction (AAS) and optimal basis selection (OBS). While these techniques can improve the data quality significantly, highly effective removal of artifacts – particularly the BCG artifact – from the data is still lacking.Here, we compared two of the most commonly used algorithms for BCG artifact removal (OBS and AAS) based on the estimated signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of auditory and visual evoked responses recorded during fMRI acquisition. We also further compared optimization of OBS for groups, and at the individual subject and run level. The results suggest that performance of the OBS algorithm can be significantly improved by choosing the optimum number of principal components. Furthermore, optimizing the number of principal components at the individual participant and run level results in significant improvements in the SNR of evoked responses compared to group optimization.

On utilizing uncertainty information in template-based EEG-fMRI ballistocardiogram artifact removal.

The correction of ballistocardiogram artifacts in simultaneous EEG-fMRI often yields unsatisfactory results. To improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of results, we inferred EEG signal uncertainty from postcorrection artifact residuals and computed the uncertainty-weighted mean of ERPs. Using an uncertainty-weighted mean significantly and consistently reduced both inter- and intrasubject SEM in the analysis of auditory evoked responses (AER, indicated by the N1-P2 complex) and in the effects of an auditory oddball paradigm (N1-P3 complex, standard-deviant difference). SNR increased by 3% on average for the AER amplitude (intrasubject) and 17% on average for the auditory oddball ERP (intersubject). This demonstrates that weighting by uncertainty complements existing artifact correction algorithms to increase SNR in ERPs. More specifically, it is an efficient method to utilize seemingly corrupt (difficult-to-correct) EEG data that might otherwise be discarded.