Completely locked-in state (CLIS) patients are unable to speak and have lost all muscle movement. From the external view, the internal brain activity of such patients cannot be easily perceived, but CLIS patients are considered to still be conscious and cognitively active. Detecting the current state of consciousness of CLIS patients is non-trivial, and it is difficult to ascertain whether CLIS patients are conscious or not. Thus, it is important to find alternative ways to re-establish communication with these patients during periods of awareness, and one such alternative is through a brain–computer interface (BCI). In this study, multiscale-based methods (multiscale sample entropy, multiscale permutation entropy and multiscale Poincaré plots) were applied to analyze electrocorticogram signals from a CLIS patient to detect the underlying consciousness level. Results from these different methods converge to a specific period of awareness of the CLIS patient in question, coinciding with the period during which the CLIS patient is recorded to have communicated with an experimenter. The aim of the investigation is to propose a methodology that could be used to create reliable communication with CLIS patients.

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The human body has substantial kinetic and kinematic degrees-of-freedoms, so redundant solutions are available for the central nervous system (CNS) to perform a repetitive task. Due to these redundancies, inherent variations exist in human movement, called motor variability (MV). Current evidence suggests that MV can be beneficial, and that there is an inverse association between MV and risk of injury. To better understand how the CNS manipulates MV to reduce injury risks, we investigated the effects of individual differences, task-relevant aspects, and psychological factors as modifiers of MV. Earlier work found that experienced workers adapted more stable movements than novices in repetitive lifting tasks. To expand on this, we quantified how MV differs between experienced workers and novices in different lifting conditions (i.e., lifting asymmetry and fatigue). Three different measures (cycle-to-cycle SD, sample entropy, and the goal equivalent manifold) were used to quantify MV. In a symmetric lifting task, experienced workers had more constrained movement than novices, and experienced workers exhibited more consistent behavior in the asymmetric condition. Novices constrained their movements, and could not maintain the same level of variability in the asymmetric condition. We concluded that experienced workers adapt stable or flexible strategies depending on task difficulty. In a prolonged lifting task, both groups increased their MV to adapt to fatigue; they particularly increased variability in a direction that had no effects on their main task goal. Developing fatigue also makes it difficult for individuals maintain the main goal. Based on these results, we conclude that increasing variability is an adaptive strategy in response to fatigue. We also assessed variability in gait parameters to compare gait adaptability using a head-worn display (HWD) compared with head-down displays for visual information presentation. An effective strategy we observed for performing a cognitive task successfully during walking was to increase gait variability in the goal direction. In addition, we found that head-up walking had smaller effects on MV, suggesting that HWDs are a promising technology to reduce adverse events during gait (e.g., falls). In summary, these results suggest that MV can be a useful indicator for evaluating some occupational injury risks. / Ph. D.

Essa dissertação apresenta o desenvolvimento métodos para caracterização da conectividade entre séries temporais neurofisiológicas. Utilizam-se metodologias provenientes da Teoria da Informação Entropias Aproximada e Amostral para representar a complexidade da série no tempo, o que permite inferir como sua variabilidade se transfere a outras sequências, através do uso da coerência parcial direcionada. Para cada sistema analisado: (1) Faz-se uma transformação em outro, relacionando-o às medidas de entropia, (2) Estima-se a conectividade pela coerência parcial direcionada e (3) Avalia-se a robustez do procedimento via simulações de Monte Carlo e análise de sensibilidade. Para os exemplos simulados, a técnica proposta é capaz de oferecer resultados plausíveis, através da correta inferência da direção de conectividade em casos de acoplamento não-linear (quadrático), com número reduzido de amostras temporais dos sinais, em que outras abordagens falham. Embora de simples implementação, conclui-se que o processo mostra-se como uma extensão da causalidade de Granger para o caso não-linear. / The purpose of this work is to present the development of methods for characterizing the connectivity between nonlinear neurophysiological time series. Methodologies from Information Theory Approximate and Sample Entropies are used to represent the complexity of the series in a period of time, which allows inferring on how its variability is transferred to other sequences, using partial directed coherence. Methods: For each system under consideration, (1) It is done a transformation in another, relating it to measures of entropy, (2) The connectivity is estimated by the use of partial directed coherence and (3) The robustness of the procedure is analyzed via Monte Carlo simulations and sensitivity analysis. Results: For the simulated examples, the proposed technique is able to offer plausible results, through the correct inference of the connectivity direction, in cases of nonlinear coupling (quadratic), with a reduced number of signals samples, where other approaches fail. Conclusion: The process proves to be an extension of the Granger causality to the nonlinear case.

Essa dissertação apresenta o desenvolvimento métodos para caracterização da conectividade entre séries temporais neurofisiológicas. Utilizam-se metodologias provenientes da Teoria da Informação Entropias Aproximada e Amostral para representar a complexidade da série no tempo, o que permite inferir como sua variabilidade se transfere a outras sequências, através do uso da coerência parcial direcionada. Para cada sistema analisado: (1) Faz-se uma transformação em outro, relacionando-o às medidas de entropia, (2) Estima-se a conectividade pela coerência parcial direcionada e (3) Avalia-se a robustez do procedimento via simulações de Monte Carlo e análise de sensibilidade. Para os exemplos simulados, a técnica proposta é capaz de oferecer resultados plausíveis, através da correta inferência da direção de conectividade em casos de acoplamento não-linear (quadrático), com número reduzido de amostras temporais dos sinais, em que outras abordagens falham. Embora de simples implementação, conclui-se que o processo mostra-se como uma extensão da causalidade de Granger para o caso não-linear. / The purpose of this work is to present the development of methods for characterizing the connectivity between nonlinear neurophysiological time series. Methodologies from Information Theory Approximate and Sample Entropies are used to represent the complexity of the series in a period of time, which allows inferring on how its variability is transferred to other sequences, using partial directed coherence. Methods: For each system under consideration, (1) It is done a transformation in another, relating it to measures of entropy, (2) The connectivity is estimated by the use of partial directed coherence and (3) The robustness of the procedure is analyzed via Monte Carlo simulations and sensitivity analysis. Results: For the simulated examples, the proposed technique is able to offer plausible results, through the correct inference of the connectivity direction, in cases of nonlinear coupling (quadratic), with a reduced number of signals samples, where other approaches fail. Conclusion: The process proves to be an extension of the Granger causality to the nonlinear case.