This semestral thesis deals with visualization of intracranial EEG. In the first part, theoretical basics of EEG is mentioned. After that, image registration, as a needed tool for visualization is described followed by research of methods of visualization of high frequency oscilations from intracranial EEG. Finally, method for visualization of high frequency oscilations from EEG in real MRI patient scans is designed and implemented.

Epileptic disease is connected with change in activity of neuronal clusters. Brain connectivity analysis deals with statistic interdependencies between different neuronal centres. Earlier studies show that changes in connectivity can be seen near primary epileptic site. What is changing connectivity and its characteristic in interictal recordings are yet to be fully known. In this thesis are analyzed data from intracranial EEG electrodes, positioned in and neighboring areas of epileptic site. Changes in connectivity of epileptic site and its surroundings are observed by nonlinear correlation method. Decrease in connectivity of epileptic site during slow wave sleep was detected on frequencies above 80 Hz. Reduced connectivity was measured on the border of epileptic zone and normal tissue. Observed features are accentuated during sleep. It was also found out that connectivity at the border of epileptic zone apears to have nonlinear property. The results show that physiological processes during sleep are influencing connectivity near epileptic site and decrease in connectivity may be related to nonlinear dependence of neuronal activity at the border of epileptic zone. This study confirms hypothesis of the earlier studies and reveals new facts about connectivity of epileptic site from the perspective of nonlinear processes. Consequent study based on this findings might lead to more precise delineation of epileptic site and to better understanding of processes, which are causing epileptic fits.

The Human brain consists of mutually connected neuronal populations that build anatomically and functionally separated structures. To understand human brain activity and connectivity, it is crucial to describe how these structures are connected and how information is spread. Commonly used methods often work with data from scalp EEG, with a limited number of contacts, and are incapable of observing dynamic changes during cognitive processes or different behavioural states. In addition, connectivity studies almost never analyse pathological parts of the brain, which can have a crucial impact on pathology research and treatment. The aim of this work is connectivity analysis and its evolution in time during cognitive tasks using data from intracranial EEG. Physiological processes in cognitive stimulation and the local connectivity of pathology in the epileptic brain during wake and sleep were analysed. The results provide new insight into human brain physiology research. This was achieved by an innovative approach which combines connectivity methods with EEG spectral power calculation. The second part of this work focuses on seizure onset zone (SOZ) connectivity in the epileptic brain. The results describe the functional isolation of the SOZ from the surrounding tissue, which may contribute to clinical research and epilepsy treatment.

Der Distraktoreffekt beschreibt eine Verlängerung der Fixationsdauer als Folge der Darbietung irrelevanter Störreize (Distraktoren). In der Dissertation wurde der Frage nachgegangen, ob sich der Distraktoreffekt funktionell auch im Rahmen des Konzepts der Orientierungsreaktion (OR – Sokolov, 1963) betrachten lässt. Reizeigenschaften wie Neuheit und Relevanz wurden in der Vergangenheit als wesentliche Auslösebedingungen einer OR diskutiert. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurden beide Merkmale untersucht, um die Plausibilität des Zusammenhangs von Distraktoreffekt und OR empirisch zu testen. Hierfür kam in allen Studien ein experimentelles Paradigma zum Einsatz, bei dem Distraktoren blickkontingent während einer freien Bildbetrachtungsaufgabe dargeboten wurden. Der Einfluss von Neuheit wurde durch Untersuchungen zur Habituation des Distraktoreffekts geprüft. Die Ergebnisse der Studien ergaben deutliche Anzeichen einer Habituation im okulomotorischen Verhalten (Abnahme der Fixationsdauerverlängerung) sowie in elektrophysiologischen Parametern der kortikalen Verarbeitung des Distraktors, im Sinne einer Abnahme der N1 Komponente des EKPs. Somit konnte also eine Modulation durch Neuheit eines Distraktors nachgewiesen werden. Die Frage nach dem Einfluss von Relevanz wurde experimentell durch Manipulation aufgabenbezogener Relevanz von Distraktoren, durch Verwendung emotionaler Distraktorinhalte (unterschiedliche emotionale Gesichtsausdrücke) und durch Darbietung neutraler Distraktoren in einem emotionalen Kontext untersucht. In keiner der drei Studien konnten eindeutige Befunde, die für eine Modulation des Distraktoreffekts durch Relevanz sprechen, aufgezeigt werden. Zusammengenommen konnte der postulierte Zusammenhang von Distraktoreffekt und OR nicht bestätigt werden. Im letzten Teil der Arbeit wurde das Distraktorparadigma genutzt, um zu prüfen, ob Unterschiede in der Art der Verarbeitung und Aufmerksamkeitsausrichtung innerhalb einer Fixation die Verarbeitung eines Distraktors beeinflussen. Frühere Überlegungen aufgreifend (Pannasch & Velichkovsky, 2009) wurden Verarbeitungsunterschiede anhand des Musters von Sakkaden, die eine Fixation umgeben, operationalisiert. Die distraktorinduzierte Verlängerung der Fixationsdauer war am größten, wenn die betroffene Fixation in kurze vorhergehende und nachfolgende Sakkaden eingebettet war und am kleinsten im Kontext langer Sakkaden. In parallel aufgezeichneten elektrophysiologischen Daten zeigten sich Unterschiede zwischen den sakkadischen Kontextbedingungen vor allem als Variation der distraktorbezogenen P2 Komponente. Diese Ergebnisse bestätigten die Annahme, dass anhand des sakkadischen Kontexts Unterschiede in der Art bzw. dem Modus der Verarbeitung innerhalb einer Fixation identifiziert werden können und sich in Veränderungen von Verhaltensparametern und kortikalen Aktivitätsmustern der Distraktorverarbeitung widerspiegeln. Diese Ergebnisse unterstützen einerseits frühere Annahmen bezüglich funktioneller Unterschiede von Blickbewegungsmustern (Velichkovsky, Joos, Helmert, & Pannasch, 2005) und legen außerdem eine Beteiligung kortikaler Areale an distraktorinduzierten Prozessen der sakkadischen Hemmung nahe.

Our brain controls the processes of the body including movement. In this thesis, we try to understand how the information about hand movement is encoded into the brain's electrical activity and how this activity can be used to predict the velocity and absolute velocity of hand movements. Using a well-established deep neural network architecture for EEG decoding - the Deep4Net - we predict hand movement velocity and absolute velocity from intracranial EEG signals. While reaching the expected performance level, we determine the influence of different frequency bands on the network's prediction. We find that modulations in the high-gamma frequency band are less informative than expected based on previous studies. We also identify two architectural modifications which lead to higher performances. 1. the removal of max-pooling layers in the architecture leads to significantly higher correlations. 2. the non-uniform receptive field of the network is a potential drawback making the network biased towards less relevant information. 1

<p>Temporal processing and temporal coherence processing are fundamental components of auditory processing and the focus of this thesis. Cortical temporal processing in particular is understudied in humans. This dissertation makes three contributions that help characterize auditory temporal processing, and its relationship to auditory perception in humans. Experiment 1 develops a novel systems identification approach utilizing modified maximum length sequences (m-seq) to robustly measure cortical temporal processing noninvasively. Using this technique, it is found that cortex's ability to track dynamic spatial auditory cues can explain the ability to utilize dynamic binaural information to do a spatial unmasking task. This result combined with behavioral data that shows FM tracking extends out to similar rates as spatial tracking demonstrates how auditory tracking broadly is constrained by the temporal properties of cortex. Experiment 2 develops a novel measure of temporal processing, called the modulation temporal response function (mod-TRF), which can separate the underlying sources contributing to modulation processing along the auditory system from short, middle, and late latency regions. The mod-TRF has a robust SNR at the individual level giving it the potential to become an ubiquitous tool to assess temporal processing and auditory activity generally across individuals. The utility of the mod-TRF is demonstrated by evaluating how attention affects different sources along the auditory pathway. Other studies utilizing the mod-TRF could explore how temporal processing in early and late areas of the auditory system changes with aging, hearing loss, musicianship, and neuropsychiatric disorders. Experiment 3 establishes a novel physiological measure of across channel temporal coherence processing to measure auditory binding ability across individuals. It  is demonstrated how this novel temporal coherence measure can explain performance on a behavioral temporal coherence detection task, speech-in-noise task, and comodulation masking release. Lastly, it is explored how social and communicative features in individuals, measured via the Autism Quotient, align with differences in auditory ability at various tasks. </p>

Physiological indicators like heart rate (HR) and its variability (HRV) from ECG (electrocardiograms), and frontal lobe alpha power asymmetry (AA) and frontoparietal connectivity from EEG (electroencephalograms), can elucidate the role of the nervous system and other visceral organs and their effects on behavioral measures of cognitive and emotional self-regulation. Knowledge of the intergenerational transmission of cardiac and cerebral physiology can provide insight as to the developmental patterns of the organization and stabilization of these physiological processes in children and their mothers. The current study addresses a key question: Is there a developmental shift from 3-9 years of age in the overall pattern of EEG and ECG similarity between children and their mothers? The hypothesis was that there would be increasing child-mother similarity with age. EEG and ECG physiology was examined during a resting-state baseline period, during completion of cognitive tasks, and as baseline-to-task changes in EEG AA and frontoparietal coherence, and ECG HR and HRV in children and their mothers. A socioeconomically diverse longitudinal sample of 171 mothers with their children at ages 3, 6, and 9 years completed questionnaires and laboratory visits. Results indicated that there was some evidence to suggest the presence of mother-child similarity. Twenty of the seventy-two estimated intraclass correlations were significant. Furthermore, of the 20 significant correlations overall, none were present at child age 3 years, 6 were significant at child age 6 years, and 14 were significant at child age 9 years. Thus, overall, there was evidence that by age 6 years, child-mother similarity in physiological indicators of SR had begun to emerge. Additionally, consistent with the study hypothesis, there was some evidence of a pattern of increasing similarity for certain physiological indicators. Of the 72 estimated age-difference Fisher tests for increasing similarity, 17 were significant and in the hypothesized direction. The greatest number were seen during the task condition for ages 6 and 9, and particularly for the frontoparietal EEG variables. Findings are interpreted in light of social learning and behavioral genetics theories.

En raison de la grande quantité d’EEG acquise sur plusieurs journées, une technique de compression efficace est nécessaire. Le manque des experts et la courte durée des crises encouragent la détection automatique des convulsions. Un affichage uniforme est obligatoire pour assurer l’interopérabilité et la lecture des examens EEG transmis. Le codeur certifié médical WAAVES fournit des CR élevés et assure une qualité de diagnostic d’image. Durant nos travaux, trois défis sont révélés : adapter WAAVES à la compression des signaux, détecter automatiquement les crises épileptiques et assurer l’interopérabilité des afficheurs EEG. L’étude du codeur montre qu’il est incapable de supprimer la corrélation spatiale et de compresser des signaux monodimensionnels. Par conséquent, nous avons appliqué l’ICA pour décorréler les signaux, la mise en échelle pour redimensionner les valeurs décimales et la construction d’image. Pour garder une qualité de diagnostic avec un PDR inférieur à 7%, nous avons codé le résidu. L’algorithme de compression EEGWaaves proposé a atteint des CR de l’ordre de 56. Ensuite, nous avons proposé une méthode d’extraction des caractéristiques des signaux EEG basée sur un nouveau modèle de calcul de la prédiction énergétique (EAM) des signaux. Ensuite, des paramètres statistiques ont été calculés et les Réseaux de Neurones ont été appliqués pour détecter les crises épileptiques. Cette méthode nous a permis d’atteindre de meilleure sensibilité allant jusqu’à 100% et une précision de 99.44%. Le dernier chapitre détaille le déploiement de notre afficheur multi-plateforme des signaux physiologiques. Il assure l’interopérabilité des examens EEG entre les hôpitaux. / Due to the large amount of EEG acquired over several days, an efficient compression technique is necessary. The lack of experts and the short duration of epileptic seizures require the automatic detection of these seizures. Furthermore, a uniform viewer is mandatory to ensure interoperability and a correct reading of transmitted EEG exams. The certified medical image WAAVES coder provides high compression ratios CR while ensuring image quality. During our thesis, three challenges are revealed : adapting WAAVES coder to the compression of the EEG signals, detecting automatically epileptic seizures in an EEG signal and ensure the interoperability of the displays of EEG exams. The study of WAAVES shows that this coder is unable to remove spatial correlation and to compress directly monodimensional signals. Therefore, we applied ICA to decorrelate signals, a scaling to resize decimal values, and image construction. To keep a diagnostic quality with a PDR less than 7%, we coded the residue. The proposed compression algorithm EEGWaaves has achieved CR equal to 56. Subsequently, we proposed a new method of EEG feature extraction based on a new calculation model of the energy expected measurement (EAM) of EEG signals. Then, statistical parameters were calculated and Neural Networks were applied to classify and detect epileptic seizures. Our method allowed to achieve a better sensitivity up to 100% and an accuracy of 99.44%. The last chapter details the deployment of our multiplatform display of physiological signals by meeting the specifications established by doctors. The main role of this software is to ensure the interoperability of EEG exams between healthcare centers.

La présente thèse étudie le rôle de l'accent prosodique (accent de mot vs. accent de syntagme) lors du traitement auditif de paires minimales ambigües (mots composés vs. syntagmes) du chinois mandarin. Deux types de paires minimales ont été utilisés: 1) Mots composés avec un ton neutre (ex: dong3xi0 « chose ») vs. Syntagme avec un ton plein (ex: dong3xi1 « est et ouest ») qui se distinguent par la réalisation du ton sur la syllabe finale ; 2) Mots composés Verbe-Nom (VN) (ex: 'chaofan « riz frit ») vs. Syntagmes Verbe-Objet (VO) (ex: chao'fan « frire du riz ») se distinguant par la position de l'accent prosodique. Nos données comportementales et neurophysiologiques démontrent que : 1) la syllabe finale est plus longue et l'étendue de la F0 est plus large dans les VO que dans les VN, 2) la prosodie assiste le système de traitement pour anticiper la structure morphologique des séquences ambigües, et 3) un traitement hiérarchique « de droite-à-gauche » des informations prosodiques en complément d'un traitement séquentiel « de gauche-à-droite » prend place en chinois mandarin. Prises dans leur ensemble, nos données précisent la description fonctionnelle et structurale du modèle Prosody-Assisted-Processing (PAP) pour le chinois mandarin. / The present thesis investigates the role of prosodic stress (i.e. lexical versus phrasal stress) on the auditory processing of Mandarin Chinese ambiguous compound /phrase minimal pairs. Two types of compound/phrase minimal pairs were used: 1) Compound word with a neutral tone (e.g. dong3xi0 "thing") vs. phrase with a full tone (e.g. dong3xi1 "east and west") distinguished by the final syllable tone realization; 2) Verb-Noun (VN) compound word (e.g. 'chaofan "fried rice") and Verb-Object (VO) phrase (e.g. chao'fan "fry the rice") distinguished by the position of the prosodic stress. Combined behavioral and neurophysiological data demonstrate that 1) the final syllable was more lengthened and the F0 range was larger in VO than in VN, 2) prosodic structure does assist the processing system in anticipating morphological structure, and 3) a right-to-left hierarchical processing of prosodic information in addition to a sequential left-to-right one is involved during the processing of ambiguous spoken sequences in Mandarin Chinese. Taken together, our findings allowed us to precise the functional and structural description of the Prosody-Assisted-Processing (PAP) model for Mandarin Chinese.

Frontal EEG alpha asymmetry and its relation to depression / Die frontale EEG Alphaasymmetrie und Beziehungen zu Depression/Depressivität