2014 Fourth International Conference on Communication Systems and Network Technologies

Coherence Analysis Of EEG Signal Using Power Spectral Density

Mrs. Sukhada A. Unde

Miss.Revati Shriram

Department of Instrumentation,
Cummins College of Engineering for
Women,
Karve Nagar,Pune, India.
sukhadak23@gmail.com

Department of Instrumentation,
Cummins College of Engineering for
Women,
Karve Nagar,Pune, India
revatishriram@yahoo.com

AbstractCoherence analysis can be detect for coordination of

EEG rhythms between brain areas. It could not reflect the
dynamic properties changing with time. Coherence analysis is
a method developed on base of classic coherence analysis and
signals joint time-frequency representations in recent years.
It was used to extract transient characteristics of interactions
among brain areas. It describes the temporal, spatial and
frequency relationships of brain activities. This paper discuss
the
frequency-varying
coherence
of
EEG
(Electroencephalogram) to study the coordination mechanism
of brain. The power spectral density is the frequency-varying
method to study the coordination mechanism of brain areas.
The Welch method and the periodogram method are the two
methods to study the power spectral density. The results
showed that appropriate methods were effective tools for EEG
to study the coordination between brain areas.

signals time-frequency representations, frequency-varying

coherence method has been developed and applied to certain
cognitive task.[7]
In this paper we discuss about the power spectral density
which use to check the synchronization among the brain
areas. PSD describes how the power of a signal or time
series is distributed with the frequency.
II.

Fig 1. gives the system flow chart.The flow of the system is

as follows,
A. 10-20 Placement Of Electrodes
The 10-20 system or International 1020 placement of
electrodes system is an internationally recognized method to
describe and to apply location of scalp electrodes in the
context of an EEG test or experiment. This method was
developed to ensure standardized reproducibility so,
subject's studies could be compared over time and subjects
could be compared to each other. This system is based on
the relationship between the location of an electrode and the
underlying area of the cerebral cortex. The "10" and "20"
refer to the actual distances between adjacent electrodes are
either 10% or 20% of the total frontback or rightleft
distance of the skull. Here EEG is capture using the 10-20
electrode placement system.[6]

Keywords- Electroencephalogram(EEG), Coherence, Power

spectral density(PSD), Synchronization.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Brain electric signals recorded from the scalp have been

proved to correspond with the activity of neural network
constructed by numerous neurons under cerebral cortex. It
can help neuroscientists to explore the functional partition
of cerebral cortex and the neuron cooperation mechanism
between different cerebral areas, which had become one of
the
major
concerns
in
neuroscience.
The
electroencephalogram (EEG) is a biological electric activity
generated by a large number of neurons, that is, it is a kind
of brain rhythm produced by numerous brain cells when
they are depolarized simultaneously.[4] This property
indicates the brain rhythms result from cooperation of large
amount of neurons by synchronization. Hence the
researchers can use the synchronization of EEG to study the
co-operation mechanism of neural network and reveal
brains temporal and also, spatial characteristics during the
cognitive task.
The coherence analysis is a kind of
study based on spectrum analysis, which can be describe the
synchronization of the brain electric activities of different
frequencies between brain areas. But the non stationary of
EEG data made the classic coherence analysis not able to
explore the dynamical properties of the brain rhythms.
Hence, on the basis of classic coherence analysis and
978-1-4799-3070-8/14 $31.00 2014 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/CSNT.2014.181

SYSTEM FLOW CHART

B. EEG File
EEG file (.EEG File) is file in which different channels
waveform are measured using 10-20 electrode placement
system. The EEG files are having either 16 channel
waveform or 32 channel waveform.The .EEG File is
extantion of EEG taken by EEG amplifier NeuroScan
C. Read in Matlab
The .EEG file cannot read directly in matlab for that
purpose Version 4.2.7 software is use in which EEG file is
export to excel file and then excel file is differentiated into
text document. The text document is then read in the matlab.
D. Power Spectral Density
Power spectral density, describes how the power of
signal or time series is distributed with frequency. Power
871

spectral density function shows the strength of the variations

as a function of frequency. [5]That is, it shows that at which
frequencies variations are strong and at which frequencies
variations are weak. The unit of PSD is energy per
frequency and you can obtain energy within a specific
frequency range by integrating PSD within that frequency
range.

H. Coherent / Non-coherent
When the phase difference and amplitude ratio between
two signals remain unchanged, the coefficient equals 1, that
is, two signals are more coherent, otherwise trends to 0, that
is, two signals are non coherent. [3]Means, when two area
of brain are more synchronous to each other the result is
nearer to 1 that is, they are more coherent to each other,
otherwise non coherent means nearer to 0.

10-20 Placement Of Electrodes

III.

A. Subjects
All subjects are right handed according to a self-report,
and free from neurological or psychiatric illness. All had
normal or corrected to normal visual acuity, and normal
color vision. Subjects were seated inside a dimly lit room at
the distance of approximately 100 cm from the screen.

EEG File

Read In Matlab

Power Spectral Density

Welch Method

MATERIALS AND METHODS

B. EEG recording
EEG activity was continuously recorded from scalp
using EEG amplifier NeuroScan with a 16-channel
electrode. All electrodes were referenced to linked electrode
placed on the left and right hemispheres. Electro-oculogram
(EOG) activity was recorded from four electrodes and used
as a guide to removal of eye movement artifacts and blinks.

Periodogram Method

Coherence Estimation

C. Power Spectral Density

Power spectral density (PSD), describes how to the
power of a signal or time series is distributed with
frequency. Since signal with nonzero average power is not
square integrable, the Fourier transforms do not exist in this
case. The PSD is the Fourier transform of the
autocorrelation function of the signal. The power of a signal
in a given frequency band can calculated by integrating over
positive and negative frequencies. The definition of power
spectral density generalizes in a straight manner to finite
time series with 1nN,such as signal sampled at discrete
times xn = x(nt) for a total measurement period T = Nt.

Result-Coherent / Non-coherent

Figure 1. System Flow Chart

E. Welch Method
The power spectral density of the input signal vector
using Welch's averaged modified method of spectral
estimation. The power spectral density is calculated in units
of power per radians per sample.
F. Periodogram Method
The power spectral density estimate the input signal of
the sequence using a periodogram. The power spectral
density is calculated in units of power per radians per
sample. The corresponding vector of frequencies is
computed in radians per sample, and has the same length as
a input signal.

(1)
Equation (1), gives the equation for both methods.In a
real-world application, one would typically average the
single-measurement PSD on several repetitions of the
measurement to obtain more accurate estimate of
theoretical PSD of physical process underlying the
individual measurements.[5] This computed PSD sometimes
called periodogram. One can prove that the periodogram
converges to the true PSD when averaging time interval T
goes to infinity to approach the Power Spectral Density.

G. Coherence Estimation
The coherence analysis is a kind of study based on
spectrum analysis, which can be describe the
synchronization of brain electric activities of different
frequencies between brain areas.[1] But the non stationary
of EEG data made the classic coherence analysis not able to
explore the dynamical properties of the brain rhythms.
Hence, on the basis of classic coherence analysis and
signals time-frequency representations, time-varying
coherence methods had been developed and applied to
certain cognitive tasks or pathology and healing researches.

872

D. Coherence Analysis
The coherence analysis is a kind of study based on
spectrum analysis, which can be describe the
synchronization of brain electric activities of different
frequencies between brain areas. The coherence analysis is
based on the power spectrum estimation.[2] The coherence
between two signals x(t) and y(t) is a real-valued function
that is defined as, magnitude squared value of the crosspower spectrum divided by the product of power of the
spectra of both signals are completely correlated.
Equation (2) is a equitation for analysis of coherence of
EEG signals.

value of the coherence between PSD by welch method of

channel C4-P4 and channel F4-C4 is 0.9478..
B. Using Periodogram Method
The channel C4-P4 and channel F4-C4 are used to check
the feature extraction method, power spectral density using
periodogram method. The average value of PSD by
periodogram method of channel C4-P4 is 178.0053. The
average value of PSD by periodogram method of channel
F4-C4 is 172.4291. Also, the coherence is find out between
PSD using periodogram method of channel C4-P4 and
channel F4-C4. The average value of the coherence
between PSD by periodogram method of channel C4-P4 and
channel F4-C4 is 0.9375. Fig 3 is gives the channel C4-P4
and channel F4-C4, PSD by Welch method of channel C4P4 and channel F4-C4 and Coherence between PSD by
periodogram of channel C4-P4 and F4-C4.

(2)
Where,
Gxy - Cross-spectral density between x and y,
Gxx - Auto spectral density of x,
Gyy - Auto spectral density of y.
IV.

Channel C4-P4
500
0
-500

RESULT

500
0
-500

A. Using Welch Method

2
1
0

Channel C4-P4
500
0
-500
500
0
-500
10000
5000
0
10000
5000
0
1
0.5
0

500

500

50

1000

1500
2000
Channel F4 -C4

1000
1500
2000
PSD by pwelch of channel C4-P4

100
150
200
250
PSD by pwelch of channel F4-C4

2500

2500

300

50
100
150
200
250
300
Coherence between PSD by pwelch of channels C4-P4 and F4-C4

20

40

60

80

100

120

10000
5000
0

3000

1
0.5
0

3000

500

0
4
x 10

500

50

1000

1500
2000
Channel F4 -C4

1000
1500
2000
PSD by periodogram of channel C4-P4

100
150
200
250
PSD by periodogram of channel F4-C4

2500

3000

2500

3000

300

350

50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Coherence between PSD by periodogram of channels C4-P4 and F4-C4

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Figure 3. PSD by periodogram of channel C4-P4 and F4-C4, Coherence

between PSD by periodogram of channel C4-P4 and F4-C4.

350

C. Accuracy
For power spectral density of signal channel C4-P4
using Welchs averaged, the window is deside a bartlett
window with 1000 length with overlapping 300 and nfft
600, the average value of PSD is 169.5701. The PSD
estimate computed using the modified periodogram method,
the window is desided a bartlett window with 2560 length
and nfft as 600. Here signal of channel C4-P4 is used and
the average value of PSD is 178.0053. From which both
methods are gives nearly same result, that is both methods
are more accurate methods for calculating the PSD for
channel C4-P4.
For power spectral density of signal channel F4-C4
using Welchs averaged,the window is deside a Bartlett
window with 1000 length with overlapping 300 and nfft
600. The average value of PSD is 157.7733. The PSD
estimate computed using the modified periodogram method,
the window is desided a bartlett window with 2560 length
and nfft as 600. Here signal of channel F4-C4 is used and

350

140

Figure 2. PSD by pwelch of channel C4-P4 and F4-C4, Coherence

between PSD by welch of channel C4-P4 and F4-C4.

Fig 2 is gives the channel C4-P4 and channel F4-C4, PSD

by welch method of channel C4-P4 and channel F4-C4 and
Coherence between PSD by welch of channel C4-P4 and
F4-C4. The channel C4-P4 and channel F4-C4 are used to
check the feature extraction method, power spectral density
using welch method. The average value of PSD by welch
method of channel C4-P4 is 169.5701. The average value
of PSD by welch method of channel F4-C4 is 157.7733.
Also, the coherence is find out between PSD using welch
method of channel C4-P4 and channel F4-C4. The average

873

[10] B. Schack, G. Grieszbach, H. Nowak, and W. Krause, The

sensitivity of instantaneous coherence for considering elementary
comparison processing. Part II: similarities and differences between
EEG and MEG coherences, International Journal of
Psychophysiology, vol. 31, 1999, pp. 241-259.

the average value of PSD is 172.4291. From which both

methods are gives nearly same result, that is both methods
are more accurate methods for calculating the PSD for
channel F4-C4.
V.

CONCLUSION

PSD can be calculate using by welch and periodogram

and are more sincronus to each other. The coherence of
welch between channel C4-P4 and channel F4-C4 and the
coherence of periodogram channel C4-P4 and channel F4C4 are more coherent to each other. The average value of
the coherence between PSD by welch method of channel
C4-P4 and channel F4-C4 is 0.9478 and the average value
of the coherence between PSD by periodogram method of
channel C4-P4 and channel F4-C4 is 0.9375, that is nearer
to 1 means these areas are more synchronous to each other.
EEG coherence analysis, an important tool for studying
high-level
processes, enables us to examine the
intermediate sub-processes of interaction among different
topographic areas and thus gives insights into the
investigation of the functional networks cooperation during
various processes.
Acknowledgment
This work is supported by Prof. A.D.Gaikwad, HOD of
Instrumentation and control Department, CCOEW, Pune
and Dr. Khambete, Principal, CCOEW, Pune. Last but not
the least we would like to express our gratitude
Dr.Shirbhate, Amravati for his full co-operation.

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B. Schack, G. Seide, W. awe, F. Heinrich, U. Krause

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