TY - GEN
T1 - Decoding of intentional actions from scalp electroencephalography (EEG) in freely-behaving infants
AU - Hernandez, Zachery R.
AU - Cruz-Garza, Jesus
AU - Tse, Teresa
AU - Contreras Vidal, Jose L.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 IEEE.
PY - 2014/11/2
Y1 - 2014/11/2
N2 - The mirror neuron system (MNS) in humans is thought to enable an individual's understanding of the meaning of actions performed by others and the potential imitation and learning of those actions. In humans, electroencephalographic (EEG) changes in sensorimotor a-band at central electrodes, which desynchronizes both during execution and observation of goal-directed actions (i.e., ν suppression), have been considered an analog to MNS function. However, methodological and developmental issues, as well as the nature of generalized ν suppression to imagined, observed, and performed actions, have yet to provide a mechanistic relationship between EEG ν-rhythm and MNS function, and the extent to which EEG can be used to infer intent during MNS tasks remains unknown. In this study we present a novel methodology using active EEG and inertial sensors to record brain activity and behavioral actions from freely-behaving infants during exploration, imitation, attentive rest, pointing, reaching and grasping, and interaction with an actor. We used 5-band (1-4Hz) EEG as input to a dimensionality reduction algorithm (locality-preserving Fisher's discriminant analysis, LFDA) followed by a neural classifier (Gaussian mixture models, GMMs) to decode the each MNS task performed by freely-behaving 6-24 month old infants during interaction with an adult actor. Here, we present results from a 20-month male infant to illustrate our approach and show the feasibility of EEG-based classification of freely occurring MNS behaviors displayed by an infant. These results, which provide an alternative to the ν-rhythm theory of MNS function, indicate the informative nature of EEG in relation to intentionality (goal) for MNS tasks which may support action-understanding and thus bear implications for advancing the understanding of MNS function.
AB - The mirror neuron system (MNS) in humans is thought to enable an individual's understanding of the meaning of actions performed by others and the potential imitation and learning of those actions. In humans, electroencephalographic (EEG) changes in sensorimotor a-band at central electrodes, which desynchronizes both during execution and observation of goal-directed actions (i.e., ν suppression), have been considered an analog to MNS function. However, methodological and developmental issues, as well as the nature of generalized ν suppression to imagined, observed, and performed actions, have yet to provide a mechanistic relationship between EEG ν-rhythm and MNS function, and the extent to which EEG can be used to infer intent during MNS tasks remains unknown. In this study we present a novel methodology using active EEG and inertial sensors to record brain activity and behavioral actions from freely-behaving infants during exploration, imitation, attentive rest, pointing, reaching and grasping, and interaction with an actor. We used 5-band (1-4Hz) EEG as input to a dimensionality reduction algorithm (locality-preserving Fisher's discriminant analysis, LFDA) followed by a neural classifier (Gaussian mixture models, GMMs) to decode the each MNS task performed by freely-behaving 6-24 month old infants during interaction with an adult actor. Here, we present results from a 20-month male infant to illustrate our approach and show the feasibility of EEG-based classification of freely occurring MNS behaviors displayed by an infant. These results, which provide an alternative to the ν-rhythm theory of MNS function, indicate the informative nature of EEG in relation to intentionality (goal) for MNS tasks which may support action-understanding and thus bear implications for advancing the understanding of MNS function.
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U2 - 10.1109/EMBC.2014.6944034
DO - 10.1109/EMBC.2014.6944034
M3 - Conference contribution
C2 - 25570402
AN - SCOPUS:84929453091
T3 - 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2014
SP - 2115
EP - 2118
BT - 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2014
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2014
Y2 - 26 August 2014 through 30 August 2014
ER -