A Real-Time ECG Feature Extraction Algorithm for Detecting Meditation Levels within a General Measurement Setup.

This paper presents a setup for the real-time extraction of Electroencephalography (EEG) and Electrocardiogram (ECG) features indicating the level of focus, relaxation, or meditation of a given subject. An algorithm for detecting meditation in real-time using the extracted ECG features is designed and shown to lead to accurate results using an online ECG measurement dataset. Similar methods can be used for EEG data, such that the proposed measurement setup can be used, for example, for investigating the effect of virtual reality based EEG training, with and without neurofeedback, on the capability of subjects to focus, relax, or meditate.

Ngram-derived pattern recognition for the detection and prediction of epileptic seizures.

This work presents a new method that combines symbol dynamics methodologies with an Ngram algorithm for the detection and prediction of epileptic seizures. The presented approach specifically applies Ngram-based pattern recognition, after data pre-processing, with similarity metrics, including the Hamming distance and Needlman-Wunsch algorithm, for identifying unique patterns within epochs of time. Pattern counts within each epoch are used as measures to determine seizure detection and prediction markers. Using 623 hours of intracranial electrocorticogram recordings from 21 patients containing a total of 87 seizures, the sensitivity and false prediction/detection rates of this method are quantified. Results are quantified using individual seizures within each case for training of thresholds and prediction time windows. The statistical significance of the predictive power is further investigated. We show that the method presented herein, has significant predictive power in up to 100% of temporal lobe cases, with sensitivities of up to 70-100% and low false predictions (dependant on training procedure). The cases of highest false predictions are found in the frontal origin with 0.31-0.61 false predictions per hour and with significance in 18 out of 21 cases. On average, a prediction sensitivity of 93.81% and false prediction rate of approximately 0.06 false predictions per hour are achieved in the best case scenario. This compares to previous work utilising the same data set that has shown sensitivities of up to 40-50% for a false prediction rate of less than 0.15/hour.