EEG and ECG nonlinear and spectral multiband analysis to explore the effect of videogames against anxiety

Currently, the use of video games has purposes that go beyond entertainment and has been gaining prominence in the health area. In this sense, it was hypothesized that it is possible to discriminate biological signals, namely electrocardiographic and electroencephalographic signals, collected from different participants stimulated through three different commercial video games, Tetris, Bejeweled and Energy. To test this hypothesis, a protocol was developed with the Trier Social Stress Test to induce and dose stress in the subjects to similar levels before each game session, in order to observe the effects of the three test games (3 study groups) at the physiological level. Initially collected at 2000 Hz, the signals were resampled to 500 Hz and filtered using a Butterworth low-pass filter. After filtering the signals, several representative features of the study signals were collected. These features consisted of a series of nonlinear metrics such as the Lyapunov exponent and Correlation Dimension, self-similarity metrics such as the Hurst exponent, and detrended fluctuation analysis, fractal dimensions - such as the Katz and Higuchi fractal dimensions - and metrics of signal chaos and activity, such as signal energy, Logarithmic entropy and Shannon entropy, and a number of spectral metrics for the EEG signal, which should be able to help identify any differences in the stress response. As a final result, a discrimination accuracy of 100% was obtained to discriminate the three study groups, using the top 20% of features selected by the F-score technique, using the coarse K Nearest Neighbor classifier.Atualmente, o uso de videojogos tem propósitos que vão além do entretenimento e tem vindo a ganhar destaque na área da saúde. Nesse sentido, foi formulada a hipótese de que é possível discriminar sinais biológicos, nomeadamente os sinais eletrocardiográficos e eletroencefalográficos, recolhidos de diferentes participantes estimulados através de três videojogos comerciais diferentes, Tetris, Bejeweled e Energy. Para testar esta hipótese foi desenvolvido um protocolo com o Trier Social Stress Test para induzir e dosear o stress nos sujeitos para níveis semelhantes antes de cada sessão de jogo, de forma a observar os efeitos dos três jogos de teste (3 grupos de estudo) a nível fisiológico. Recolhidos inicialmente a 2000 Hz, os sinais foram reamostrados a 500 Hz e filtrados utilizando um filtro passa-baixo de Butterworth. Após filtragem dos sinais, recolheram-se várias características representativas dos sinais de estudo. Estas características consistiram numa série de métricas não lineares, como o expoente de Lyapunov e a Dimensão de Correlação, métricas de auto similaridade como o exponente de Hurst e a análise de flutuação com trends removidas, dimensões fractais - como as dimensões fractais de Katz e Higuchi - e métricas de caos e atividade dos sinais, como a energia dos sinais, a entropia Logarítmica e a entropia de Shannon, e uma série de métricas espectrais para o sinal EEG, que devem ser capazes de ajudar a identificar qualquer diferença na resposta ao stress. Como resultado final obteve-se uma precisão de discriminação de 100% para discriminar os três grupos de estudo, utilizando as 20% das melhores características selecionadas pela técnica de F-score, recorrendo ao classificador coarse K Nearest Neighbor

Computer modeling and signal analysis of cardiovascular physiology

This dissertation aims to study cardiovascular physiology from the cellular level to the whole heart level to the body level using numerical approaches. A mathematical model was developed to describe electromechanical interaction in the heart. The model integrates cardio-electrophysiology and cardiac mechanics through excitation-induced contraction and deformation-induced currents. A finite element based parallel simulation scheme was developed to investigate coupled electrical and mechanical functions. The developed model and numerical scheme were utilized to study cardiovascular dynamics at cellular, tissue and organ levels. The influence of ion channel blockade on cardiac alternans was investigated. It was found that the channel blocker may significantly change the critical pacing period corresponding to the onset of alternans as well as the alternans’ amplitude. The influence of electro-mechanical coupling on cardiac alternans was also investigated. The study supported the earlier assumptions that discordant alternans is induced by the interaction of conduction velocity and action potential duration restitution at high pacing rates. However, mechanical contraction may influence the spatial pattern and onset of discordant alternans. Computer algorithms were developed for analysis of human physiology. The 12-lead electrocardiography (ECG) is the gold standard for diagnosis of various cardiac abnormalities. However, disturbances and mistakes may modify physiological waves in ECG and lead to wrong diagnoses. This dissertation developed advanced signal analysis techniques and computer software to detect and suppress artifacts and errors in ECG. These algorithms can help to improve the quality of health care when integrated into medical devices or services. Moreover, computer algorithms were developed to predict patient mortality in intensive care units using various physiological measures. Models and analysis techniques developed here may help to improve the quality of health care

Electrode Selection for Noninvasive Fetal Electrocardiogram Extraction using Mutual Information Criteria

International audienceBlind source separation (BSS) techniques have revealed to be promising approaches for the noninvasive extraction of fetal cardiac signals from maternal abdominal recordings. From previous studies, it is now believed that a carefully selected array of electrodes well-placed over the abdomen of a pregnant woman contains the required 'information' for BSS, to extract the complete fetal components. Based on this idea, previous works have involved array recording systems and sensor selection strategies based on the Mutual Information (MI) criterion. In this paper the previous works have been extended, by considering the 3-dimensional aspects of the cardiac electrical activity. The proposed method has been tested on simulated and real maternal abdominal recordings. The results show that the new sensor selection strategy together with the MI criterion, can be effectively used to select the channels containing the most 'information' concerning the fetal ECG components from an array of 72 recordings. The method is hence believed to be useful for the selection of the most informative channels in online applications, considering the different fetal positions and movements

Machine Learning approach for TWA detection relying on ensemble data design

Background and objective: T-wave alternans (TWA) is a fluctuation of the ST–T complex of the surface electrocardiogram (ECG) on an every–other–beat basis. It has been shown to be clinically helpful for sudden cardiac death stratification, though the lack of a gold standard to benchmark detection methods limits its application and impairs the development of alternative techniques. In this work, a novel approach based on machine learning for TWA detection is proposed. Additionally, a complete experimental setup is presented for TWA detection methods benchmarking. Methods: The proposed experimental setup is based on the use of open-source databases to enable experiment replication and the use of real ECG signals with added TWA episodes. Also, intra-patient overfitting and class imbalance have been carefully avoided. The Spectral Method (SM), the Modified Moving Average Method (MMA), and the Time Domain Method (TM) are used to obtain input features to the Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, namely, K Nearest Neighbor, Decision Trees, Random Forest, Support Vector Machine and Multi-Layer Perceptron. Results: There were not found large differences in the performance of the different ML algorithms. Decision Trees showed the best overall performance (accuracy 0.88 ± 0.04, precision 0.89 ± 0.05, Recall 0.90± 0.05, F1 score 0.89± 0.03). Compared to the SM (accuracy 0.79, precision 0.93, Recall 0.64, F1 score 0.76) there was an improvement in every metric except for the precision. Conclusions: In this work, a realistic database to test the presence of TWA using ML algorithms was assembled. The ML algorithms overall outperformed the SM used as a gold standard. Learning from data to identify alternans elicits a substantial detection growth at the expense of a small increment of the false alarm.Universidad de Alcal

Deep learning for healthcare applications based on physiological signals: A review

Background and objective: We have cast the net into the ocean of knowledge to retrieve the latest scientific research on deep learning methods for physiological signals. We found 53 research papers on this topic, published from 01.01.2008 to 31.12.2017. Methods: An initial bibliometric analysis shows that the reviewed papers focused on Electromyogram(EMG), Electroencephalogram(EEG), Electrocardiogram(ECG), and Electrooculogram(EOG). These four categories were used to structure the subsequent content review. Results: During the content review, we understood that deep learning performs better for big and varied datasets than classic analysis and machine classification methods. Deep learning algorithms try to develop the model by using all the available input. Conclusions: This review paper depicts the application of various deep learning algorithms used till recently, but in future it will be used for more healthcare areas to improve the quality of diagnosi