Health and Rehabilitation Research Institute, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland 0627, New Zealand.
Centre for Chiropractic Research, New Zealand College of Chiropractic, Auckland 1060, New Zealand.
Sensors (Basel). 2020 Apr 24;20(8):2427. doi: 10.3390/s20082427.
Event related potentials (ERPs) provide insight into the neural activity generated in response to motor, sensory and cognitive processes. Despite the increasing use of ERP data in clinical research little is known about the reliability of human manual ERP labelling methods. Intra-rater and inter-rater reliability were evaluated in five electroencephalography (EEG) experts who labelled the peak negativity of averaged movement related cortical potentials (MRCPs) derived from thirty datasets. Each dataset contained 50 MRCP epochs from healthy people performing cued voluntary or imagined movement, or people with stroke performing cued voluntary movement. Reliability was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient and standard error of measurement. Excellent intra- and inter-rater reliability was demonstrated in the voluntary movement conditions in healthy people and people with stroke. In comparison reliability in the imagined condition was low to moderate. Post-hoc secondary epoch analysis revealed that the morphology of the signal contributed to the consistency of epoch inclusion; potentially explaining the differences in reliability seen across conditions. Findings from this study may inform future research focused on developing automated labelling methods for ERP feature extraction and call to the wider community of researchers interested in utilizing ERPs as a measure of neurophysiological change or in the delivery of EEG-driven interventions.
事件相关电位 (ERPs) 提供了对运动、感觉和认知过程中产生的神经活动的深入了解。尽管 ERP 数据在临床研究中的应用越来越多，但人们对人类手动 ERP 标记方法的可靠性知之甚少。在 5 位脑电图 (EEG) 专家中评估了内部和内部评估者的可靠性，他们标记了从 30 个数据集得出的平均运动相关皮质电位 (MRCP) 的峰值负性。每个数据集包含 50 个来自健康人执行提示自愿或想象运动或中风患者执行提示自愿运动的 MRCP 时段。使用组内相关系数和测量标准误差评估可靠性。在健康人和中风患者的自愿运动条件下，表现出极好的内部和内部评估者可靠性。相比之下，想象条件下的可靠性较低至中等。事后二次时段分析表明，信号的形态有助于时段包含的一致性; 可能解释了不同条件下可靠性的差异。本研究的结果可能为未来专注于开发 ERP 特征提取自动标记方法的研究提供信息，并呼吁对利用 ERP 作为神经生理变化测量或提供 EEG 驱动干预措施感兴趣的更广泛研究界。
