Reliability of quantitative EEG features.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the reliability of several well-known quantitative EEG (qEEG) features in the elderly in the resting, eyes closed condition and study the effects of epoch length and channel derivations on reliability.


METHODS
Fifteen healthy adults, over 50 years of age, underwent 10 EEG recordings over a 2-month period. Various qEEG features derived from power spectral, coherence, entropy and complexity analysis of the EEG were computed. Reliability was quantified using an intraclass correlation coefficient.


RESULTS
The highest reliability was obtained with the average montage, reliability increased with epoch length up to 40s, longer epochs gave only marginal improvement. The reliability of the qEEG features was highest for power spectral parameters, followed by regularity measures based on entropy and complexity, coherence being least reliable.


CONCLUSIONS
Montage and epoch length had considerable effects on reliability. Several apparently unrelated regularity measures had similar stability. Reliability of coherence measures was strongly dependent on channel location and frequency bands.


CONCLUSIONS
The reliability of regularity measures has until now received limited attention. Low reliability of coherence measures in general may limit their usefulness in the clinical setting.
Gudmundsson
Steinn
S
Department of Computer Science, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.
Runarsson
Thomas Philip
TP
Sigurdsson
Sven
S
Eiriksdottir
Gudrun
G
Johnsen
Kristinn
K
D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004566:Electrodes; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019277:Entropy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results