Böcker av Fabio Babiloni

The present book illustrates the theoretical aspects of several methodologies related to the possibility of i) enhancing the poor spatial information of the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity on the scalp and giving a measure of the electrical activity on the cortical surface. ii) estimating the directional influences between any given pair of channels in a multivariate dataset. iii) modeling the brain networks as graphs. The possible applications are discussed in three different experimental designs regarding i) the study of pathological conditions during a motor task, ii) the study of memory processes during a cognitive task iii) the study of the instantaneous dynamics throughout the evolution of a motor task in physiological conditions. The main outcome from all those studies indicates clearly that the performance of cognitive and motor tasks as well as the presence of neural diseases can affect the brain network topology. This evidence gives the power of reflecting cerebral "states" or "traits" to the mathematical indexes derived from the graph theory. In particular, the observed structural changes could critically depend on patterns of synchronization and desynchronization - i.e. the dynamic binding of neural assemblies - as also suggested by a wide range of previous electrophysiological studies. Moreover, the fact that these patterns occur at multiple frequencies support the evidence that brain functional networks contain multiple frequency channels along which information is transmitted. The graph theoretical approach represents an effective means to evaluate the functional connectivity patterns obtained from scalp EEG signals. The possibility to describe the complex brain networks sub-serving different functions in humans by means of "numbers" is a promising tool toward the generation of a better understanding of the brain functions. Table of Contents: Introduction / Brain Functional Connectivity / Graph Theory / High-Resolution EEG / Cortical Networks in Spinal Cord Injured Patients / Cortical Networks During a Lifelike Memory Task / Application to Time-varying Cortical Networks / Conclusions

In the last ten years many different brain imaging devices have conveyed a lot of information about the brain functioning in different experimental conditions. In every case, the biomedical engineers, together with mathematicians, physicists and physicians are called to elaborate the signals related to the brain activity in order to extract meaningful and robust information to correlate with the external behavior of the subjects. In such attempt, different signal processing tools used in telecommunications and other field of engineering or even social sciences have been adapted and re-used in the neuroscience field. The present book would like to offer a short presentation of several methods for the estimation of the cortical connectivity of the human brain. The methods here presented are relatively simply to implement, robust and can return valuable information about the causality of the activation of the different cortical areas in humans using non invasive electroencephalographic recordings. The knowledge of such signal processing tools will enrich the arsenal of the computational methods that a engineer or a mathematician could apply in the processing of brain signals. Table of Contents: Introduction / Estimation of the Effective Connectivity from Stationary Data by Structural Equation Modeling / Estimation of the Functional Connectivity from Stationary Data by Multivariate Autoregressive Methods / Estimation of Cortical Activity by the use of Realistic Head Modeling / Application: Estimation of Connectivity from Movement-Related Potentials / Application to High-Resolution EEG Recordings in a Cognitive Task (Stroop Test) / Application to Data Related to the Intention of Limb Movements in Normal Subjects and in a Spinal Cord Injured Patient / The Instantaneous Estimation of the Time-Varying Cortical Connectivity by Adaptive Multivariate Estimators / Time-Varying Connectivity from Event-Related Potentials

This book discusses the emerging field of industrial neuroscience, and reports on the authors' cutting-edge findings in the evaluation of mental states, including mental workload, cognitive control and training of personnel involved either in the piloting of aircraft and helicopters, or in managing air traffic.