WEARABLE EEG AND FNIRS IN HIGH RESOLUTION

The wearable g.Nautilus NIRX system allows for the simultaneous recording of high-quality EEG and fNIRS signals. This offers the significant advantage of acquiring and analyzing both signals concurrently during an experiment. With g.HIsys Professional, the data can be viewed, recorded, and processed in real time, while g.BSanalyze enables post-experiment data analysis.

The g.Nautilus NIRX features 8, 16, 32 or 64 input channels for EEG acquisition and 16 detectors with 16 sources for fNIRS acquisition. All data is streamed in real time into g.HIsys, where data acquisition, feature extraction, and classification are performed. The active EEG electrodes (g.SCARABEO) and the fNIRS optodes are assembled in the g.GAMMAcap, which can be configured with 8, 16, 32, or 64 EEG channels and 32 optode holders.

The g.Nautilus headset is sitting directly on the back of the cap and the optode cables are secured to the back of the g.GAMMAcap using Velcro straps and are connected directly to the NIRSport2. Both EEG and fNIRS data are transmitted to the same computer, where data streams are synchronized using precision triggers or merged into a single synchronized dataset via g.HIsys Professional. The data is acquired at the same sampling frequency, ensuring that real-time and post-processing are as straightforward as possible.

IMPORTANCE OF WEARABLE EEG AND FNIRS IN NEUROSCIENCE

Wearable EEG and fNIRS data acquisition are critical tools in neuroscience because they offer non-invasive, portable, and real-time monitoring of brain activity. These technologies enable researchers to explore brain function in natural, real-world environments, allowing for more ecologically valid research compared to traditional lab-based systems.

1. Naturalistic Settings: Wearable EEG and fNIRS allow researchers to study brain activity while individuals engage in everyday tasks, providing insights into cognitive and neural processes in realistic environments (e.g., walking, talking, interacting).
2. Portable and Continuous Monitoring: Wearable systems enable long-term data collection, making it easier to track brain activity over extended periods, which is particularly useful for studying conditions like epilepsy, sleep disorders, and cognitive decline.
3. Real-Time Feedback: These systems can provide immediate brain data, allowing for real-time neurofeedback applications. This is crucial for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) where users can control external devices using their brain signals.
4. Minimally Invasive: Compared to other brain imaging methods like fMRI, wearable EEG and fNIRS are non-invasive, more affordable, and less restrictive, making them accessible for a wider range of studies.
5. Personalized Medicine: These systems can help monitor brain function in clinical populations, such as stroke or neurodegenerative disease patients, providing insights that could lead to more personalized interventions.

KEY APPLICATIONS OF COMBINED EEG AND FNIRS

1. Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs): Wearable EEG is widely used in BCIs, where individuals can control external devices, such as wheelchairs or prosthetics, directly with their brain signals. fNIRS can also be used in BCI applications to measure brain activation related to decision-making and intention.
2. Cognitive Workload Monitoring: Wearable EEG and fNIRS can monitor mental effort and cognitive load in real-time, useful in educational settings or for optimizing human performance in high-stress environments (e.g., pilots, surgeons).
3. Neurorehabilitation: These devices are used to track brain recovery in patients with neurological disorders like stroke, traumatic brain injury, or spinal cord injuries. Neurofeedback therapies often leverage real-time EEG data to help patients regain motor function.
4. Emotion and Stress Detection: Wearable systems can detect changes in brain patterns related to stress, anxiety, or emotional states, enabling applications in mental health monitoring or workplace well-being.
5. Cognitive and Neural Research: Researchers can use wearable EEG and fNIRS to study neural correlates of attention, memory, language processing, and decision-making in everyday environments.
6. Neuroergonomics: These tools are used to study how brain function is influenced by the design of environments, tools, and systems in work or everyday life, helping optimize human-machine interactions.

The ability to collect brain data in real-world settings expands the possibilities for neuroscience research and clinical applications, making wearable EEG and fNIRS invaluable in understanding human brain function. To read more about neuroscience experiments with g.tec technology, please visit our Frontiers profile.