title: Extraction of spectral based measures from MEG background oscillations in Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: In this study, we explored the ability of several spectral based measures to summarize the information of the power spectral density (PSD) function from spontaneous magnetoencephalographic (MEG) activity in Alzheimer's disease (AD). The MEGs of 20 AD patients and 21 elderly controls were recorded with eyes closed at rest during 5 min from 148 channels. Five spectral parameters were estimated from PSD: mean frequency (MF), individual alpha frequency (IAF), transition frequency (TF), 95% spectral edge frequency (SEF95) and spectral entropy (SE). To reduce the dimensionality of the problem, we applied a principal component analysis. According to our results, MF was the best discriminating index between both groups (85.00% sensitivity, 85.71% specificity) indicating a shift to the left of the power spectrum in AD. A significant MEG slowing was also observed using both IAF (p < 0.001) and TF (p < 0.01). The lowest classification statistics (65% sensitivity, 66.67% specificity) were obtained with SEF95. However, these results were also significant (p < 0.05). This fact points out that there is a variation in the spectral content at high frequencies of AD patients and controls. Finally, a significant decrease of irregularity in the AD group was observed with SE, with results close to those obtained with MF (90.00% sensitivity, 76.19% specificity). In conclusion, a complete description of PSD can help to increase our insight into brain dysfunction in AD and to extract spectral patterns specific to the disease.
authors.affiliation: Grupo de Ingeniería Biomédica, E.T.S. Ingenieros de Telecomunicación, University of Valladolid, Camino del Cementerio s/n, 47011 Valladolid, Spain. jespoz@tel.uva.es
authors.forename: Jesús
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Poza
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hornero
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Abásolo
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fernández
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: García
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009991:Oscillometry; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012372:ROC Curve; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity