Electroencephalography (EEG) and Electromyography (EMG)

Measurement of Action Potentials in the Brain and Muscle by Sara Johannesmeyer and Kaleigh Lindeman Main Source: CleveLabs, from CleveMed I. Introduction The human brain consists of billions of neurons which are responsive cells that transmit messages from one part of the body to another. Neurons in the brain impact the completion of motor activities, mental thought, memories, and dreams. An electroencephalogram (EEG) is used to record the electrical activity of the brain. The EEG will be used to record the action potentials and the postsynaptic potentials of the neurons in the cerebral cortex. Furthermore, an EEG records the summation of the action and synaptic potentials produced by the firing of many neurons.1 The potentials of these neurons will vary due to the emotional, mental, or physiological state of the person. EEGs are often used to measure brain activity during different exercises, diagnose neurological disorders, and monitor the patients level of consciousness during surgeries. In this lab, a BioRadio from CleveMed Inc. will be used to detect the electrical activity of neurons in the cerebral cortex. Electrodes will be placed on various points on the scalp and the electrical activity will then be recorded as waves and analyzed.2 Any movement within the body relies on the coordination of various muscles. The contraction of muscles is under a voluntary control in which electrical impulses from the autonomic nervous system cause the muscle to contract. The mechanism responsible for muscle contraction is action potential. An electromyogram (EMG) can be used to measure the summation of different action potentials in a muscle at a specific time. EMGs are often used to gather information about neuromuscular disorders and how muscles coordinate with each other. In this lab, a BioRadio from CleveMed Inc. will be used to record EMG signals from the muscles in the upper arm. Additionally, recordings will be taken to determine how the EMG signals respond to muscle force and fatigue.3 II. Lab Supplies and Instruments 1. CleveLabs Kit from CleveMed Inc. 2. CleveLabs Course Software from CleveMed Inc. 3. Five Snap Electrodes and Snap Leads 4. Calibrated Weights ( 2.5, 5, 10 lbs) 5. Microsoft Excel, MATLAB, or LabVIEW 6. Seven Gold Cup electrodes 7. Conductive Gel 8. Gauze, cotton balls, and wipes 9. BioRadio 150 from CleveMed Inc. 10. Computer unit from CleveMed Inc.

III. Safety Information Table 1: Hardware Specifications for the main units. BioRadio 150 User Unit Transmission Range: 100 feet from line of sight RF Band: 902-928 MHz Input Range: +/- 750 V to +/- 2V Sampling Rate: 128-960 samples per second per channel Power Source: 2 AA batteries Input Impendance: > 20M at 10 Hz Filter Input Bandwidth: 0.5 Hz- 250Hz Power Supply: USB powered from the computer Power Consumption: 60 mA at 5.0 V Cable Interface: Mini USB

Computer Unit

Additionally safety information: Do not attach leads to any place other than what the protocol specifies For the EEG protocol, have a ground lead attached to the forehead For the EMG protocol, have a ground lead attached to the elbow. Turn the BioRadio on after everything has been properly connected to each unit. Do not use any hairstyling products when conducting the EEG experiment. The scalp needs to be clean and oil free to help the electrodes stick to the scalp. Make sure each wire is intact. IV. Protocol A. EEG 1. Turn on the laptop. Connect the computer unit to an open USB port. 2. Open the CleveLabs Course software. Log in using the names of the group members. Select Electroencephalography I, found under Basic Physiology. Click Begin Lab. 3. Ideally, the subject should be a person with short hair, free of hair gel. Seven gold cup electrodes will be used; two for the frontal region, two for the occipital region, two for the mastoid processes, and one for the middle of the forehead. Using the alcohol wipes, properly prepare and clean the electrode sites as seen on figure 8 on page 11. 4. In order to attach the electrodes, generously fill a gold cup electrode with conductive gel, allowing some to fill over the top. Add some conductive gel to a gauze pad as well. Push the electrode into the gel on the gauze pad, and then push aside the hair to place the electrode on the subjects head. Start at position O1, and then repeat for the other locations. Refer to figure 8 on page 11 for electrode placements. 5. Connect the gold cup leads to the channel inputs on the BioRadio. Refer to figure 8 on page 11. Connect Fp1 to +CH1, Fp2 to +CH2, O1 to +CH3, and O2 to 2

+CH4. Connect A1 (mastoid process) to CH1, and A2 to CH3. Use a jumper to connect CH1 and CH2, and another to connect CH3 and CH4. Connect FpZ (center of forehead) to GND. 6. Turn the BioRadio on. 7. Click on the EEG data tab, and then click Start. You should see the four channels of EEG. Ensure the time scale is set to 2 seconds. Click on Screen Capture to capture a picture of this. It may not look like EEG yet because high frequency noise is not being filtered. 8. Click on the Spectral Analysis Tab. Click on the time plot tab and set the time scale on the time domain plot to be 1 second. Set the channel to process to channel 1. 9. Instruct the subject to look at the screen. Under filter parameters, set the switch to filtered data, filter type to bandpass, the high pass cutoff to 1 Hz, the low pass filter to 20 Hz, and set the filter order to 4. 10. Instruct the subject to begin blinking rapidly, and observe the changes to the EEG signal. Capture a screen shot. Save approximately 10 seconds of this data to a file named blink. Half the time should be blinking and half should be not blinking. 11. Instruct the subject to begin to chew. Once again, observe the changes and capture a screen shot. Save 10 seconds to a file named chew, with half the time chewing and half not chewing. 12. Next you will record alpha waves. Set the channel to process to channel 1. You should still be using a 4th order bandpass filter between 1 and 20 Hz. After a few seconds, instruct the subject to close their eyes and relax. Observe the alpha waves. 13. Repeat step 12, but change the channel to process to 2, 3, and 4. Find the channel that shows the best alpha waves. Capture a screen shot from the best channel with the subjects eyes open and with eyes closed. 14. Without changing the parameters, click on the frequency domain plot tab. Observe the estimated peak frequency with the subjects eyes open and with eyes closed. When the eyes are closed, the frequency should stay within a certain range. Record the range. 15. Save 30 seconds of data while the subjects eyes are open and save to a file eyesopen. Repeat with the subjects eyes closed and save to a file eyesclosed. 16. For data analysis, go to instructions on page 4. B. EMG 1. From the main screen, select Electromyography I from Basic Physiology. 2. Clean the surface of the skin with an alcohol wipe prior to electrode attachment. Attach five electrodes: two electrodes about one inch apart above the biceps, two electrodes about one inch apart on the wrist extensors (located on the dorsal side of the forearm about halfway between the wrist and elbow), and one electrode on the bony part of the elbow. Refer to figure 9 on page 12. 3. Connect the snap leads to each electrode. Then, connect the leads to the BioRadio. Connect the leads from the biceps to Channel 1 inputs, and the leads from the wrist extensors to Channel 2 inputs. The lead from the elbow should be connected to GND. Refer to figure 9 on page 12. 3

4. Turn the BioRadio on. Click on the EMG data tab, and then click Start. You should see two channels of EMG. 5. First you will record EMG data from isometric contractions, in which the arm does not move during contraction. Instruct the subject to hold the experimental hand position fixed in space, and place the opposing hand on top of the experimental hand to resist the force. Then, pull up against the opposing hand using the biceps muscle. Save a few seconds of this data to a file named isobiceps. 6. Repeat the isometric contraction using the wrist extensor muscles. Save to a file isowrist. 7. Now use your biceps to dynamically change the angle of your elbow. Save a few seconds of this to a file dynbiceps. 8. Repeat the dynamic contraction using the wrist extensor muscles, and save to a file dynwrist. 9. Click on the Spectral Analysis Tab. Select the time domain tab, and then set the channel to process to channel 1, which is the biceps. Instruct the subject to make quick elbow flexion and extension movements. Observe the changes to the raw EMG signal due to the motion artifact. Save a few seconds and capture a screen shot. 10. Turn on the high pass filter and set the high pass cutoff to 20 Hz. Set the switch to filtered data. Repeat flexion and extension movements and observe what happens to the motion artifact. Once again, save a few seconds and capture a screen shot. 11. Turn the filtering off, and turn rectification on. Begin saving to a file weights. Instruct the subject to hold their arm at a 90 angle with their palm facing up. The subject will hold three weights of 2.5, 5.0, and 10.0 lbs for 5 seconds each. After 5 seconds of relaxed arm muscle activity (no weight), gently place the 2.5 lb weight on the subjects hand. The subject should maintain the arm position with the weight for five seconds. Remove the weight, and add the 5 lb weight for 5 seconds. Repeat with the 10 lb weight, and then stop saving data. (This should be one continuous file with all the weights.) 12. Repeat the procedure in step 11, but capture a screen shot of the subject holding each weight instead of saving to a file. 13. Click on the frequency tab. Turn all filtering off. Instruct the subject to hold an isometric contraction as before, and place a 10 lb weight in the subjects hand. The subject should hold the weight for approximately 2 minutes. Save the two minutes of data to a file named fatigue. 14. For data analysis, see instructions on page 5. V. Data Analysis A. EEG 1. Return to the main screen and select Post Processing Toolbox. Open the file eyesopen. Filter the data with appropriate filter settings to illustrate beta activity. 2. Open the file eyesclosed. Filter the data to illustrate alpha activity. 3. Open the file blink. Determine the frequency component of the blink noise and try to remove it from the EEG signal. 4

4. Open the file chew. Determine the frequency component of the chew noise and try to remove it. B. EMG 1. Open Post Processing Toolbox from the main menu. Open the file weights. Under Spectral Analysis, click Time Domain to plot Biceps EMG versus time. 2. Open the file weights in Excel. Rectify the signal by taking the absolute value of it, and store the results in a column. For each weightlifting segment of the rectified signal (a total of three), calculate the average value of the EMG signal. This should give three data points. Make a plot of Average Rectified EMG versus weight using those three data points. 3. Open each of the data files collected during isometric and dynamic muscle contractions. This should include isobiceps, isowrist, dynbiceps, and dynwrist. For each file, examine the frequency components of each of the recording using the spectral analysis tab features. Note the differences in the frequency components between dynamic and isometric motions. 4. Open the file fatigue. Click on the JTFA tab. Select the channel Biceps and complete a JFTA according to the instructions on the screen. You should observe a decrease in the frequency of the EMG signal over time due to fatigue. VI. Example of Results A. EEG 1.

Figure 1: EEG results with eyes open to illustrate beta wave activity

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Figure 2: EEG results with eyes closed to illustrate alpha activity 3.

Figure 3: EEG results while eyes are blinking with the noise removed

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Figure 4: EEG results while chewing with the noise removed B. EMG 1.

Figure 5: Plot of Biceps EMG vs. Time

2. Weight AverageRectified (lb.) EMG 2.5 86.07554 5 104.1907 10 127.5193 Table 2: Data used to plot Figure 6 below

Figure 6: Graph of the average reticfied EMG vs. weight 3. For the examination of the frequency components, the frequency was the greatest during dynamic muscle contractions.

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Figure 7: JFTA showing a decrease in frequency of the EMG signal over time due to muscle fatigue VII. Discussion Questions 1. Explain sources of noise that you saw in the experiment. Also, suggest some methods for eliminating the sources of noise, and what problems may occur with those methods. Some hospitals have programs for automated EEG analysis to detect seizures or spiking activity that occur during data acquisition. How might a noisy recording affect these automated programs? 2. There are two mechanisms responsible for creating the EEG signal. Both action potentials and post-synaptic potentials create the EEG. Explain the difference between these two mechanisms. Which of these is a graded signal and why? 3. Discuss the differences in frequency components between the dynamic and isometric EMG data files. 4. Which type of muscle fiber is recruited for tasks that need fine control over a long period of time? Which type of muscle fiber is recruited for a task that needs a short quick burst of energy? VIII. Results to be Reported A. 1. 2. 3. 4. EEG Plot of EEG filtered data of eyes open Plot of EEG filtered data of eyes closed Plot of EEG filtered data of blink with blink noise removed Plot of EEG filtered data of chew with chew noise removed 9

B. 1. 2. 3. 4.

EMG Plot of Biceps EMG versus time Table of data and plot of Average Rectified EMG versus weight Identify frequency difference between dynamic and isometric contractions Image of JFTA for fatigue

IX. References (1) Webster, J. G. Bioinstrumentation, 3rd Ed., Wiley & Sons, 2004. (2) Marieb, Elaine, and Susan Mitchell. Histology of Nervous Tissue. Human Anatomy and Physiology Laboratory Manual. 9th ed. 2008. (3) The Brain: Understanding Neurobiology. National Institute of Health. 7 Apr. 2009. <http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih2/addiction/guide/lesson2-1.htm>. X. Appendices See below (next two pages)

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Appendix I

Figure 8: Electrode placement and lead connections for Electroencephalography

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Appendix II

Figure 9: Electrode placement and lead connections for Electromyography

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