Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Departamento de Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica, Camino de Vera, s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain; Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Riabilitazione, Oftalmologia, Genetica e Scienze Materno Infantili (DINOGMI), Università degli Studi di Genova, Largo Daneo 3, 16132, Genova, Italy.
Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Riabilitazione, Oftalmologia, Genetica e Scienze Materno Infantili (DINOGMI), Università degli Studi di Genova, Largo Daneo 3, 16132, Genova, Italy; UO Clinica Neurologica, IRCCS. Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Largo R. Benzi 10, 16132, Genova, Italy.
J Neurosci Methods. 2021 Aug 1;360:109231. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2021.109231. Epub 2021 May 31.
Cortical activity connected to movements has been investigated long since, and is related, among other factors, to saliency of the gesture. However, experiments performed on movements in actual situations are rare, as most of them have been performed in laboratory simulations. Besides, no research seems to have been carried out on subjects during freehand drawing.
We propose a method based upon a commercial drawing tablet and wireless pen, that has been synchronized with EEG recording by means of a piezoelectric sensor attached to the pen tip. Complete freedom of movement is allowed, and any kind of drawing style can be performed using currently available graphics software.
EEG recordings during meaningful drawing were compared with recordings where the pen was tapped and shifted on tablet without specific purpose. With reference to T0 event (pen touching tablet), several components could be observed in pre- and post-T0 epochs. The most important appeared to be a triphasic wave (N-150, P-40 and N + 30), where P-40 showed a striking difference between drawing and tap session, being much larger in the former.
Onset of muscle EMG is usually employed for synchronization. In complex and free gestures too many muscles are active to allow reliable identification of such reference. Our method provides a precise trigger event easily detected without movement constraints.
With this method it will be possible to record EEG activity related to creative aspects of drawing and explore other skilled movements.
与运动相关的皮质活动很早就被研究过，与运动的显著性等因素有关。然而，在实际情况下进行的运动实验很少，因为它们大多数都是在实验室模拟中进行的。此外，似乎没有针对自由绘画的主体进行过研究。
我们提出了一种基于商业绘图板和无线笔的方法，该方法通过附在笔尖上的压电传感器与 EEG 记录同步。允许完全自由移动，可以使用当前可用的图形软件执行任何类型的绘图风格。
将有意义的绘画期间的 EEG 记录与没有特定目的的笔在平板电脑上敲击和移动的记录进行了比较。参考 T0 事件（笔接触平板电脑），可以在 T0 前后时期观察到几个分量。最重要的似乎是一个三相波（N-150、P-40 和 N+30），其中 P-40 在绘画和敲击会话之间表现出明显的差异，在前者中更大。
肌肉 EMG 的起始通常用于同步。在复杂和自由的运动中，有太多的肌肉处于活动状态，无法可靠地识别这种参考。我们的方法提供了一个精确的触发事件，无需运动限制即可轻松检测到。
使用这种方法，将有可能记录与绘画创作方面相关的 EEG 活动，并探索其他熟练运动。
