title: Protocol Design Challenges in the Detection of Awareness in Aware Subjects Using EEG Signals.
abstract: Recent studies have evidenced serious difficulties in detecting covert awareness with electroencephalography-based techniques both in unresponsive patients and in healthy control subjects. This work reproduces the protocol design in two recent mental imagery studies with a larger group comprising 20 healthy volunteers. The main goal is assessing if modifications in the signal extraction techniques, training-testing/cross-validation routines, and hypotheses evoked in the statistical analysis, can provide solutions to the serious difficulties documented in the literature. The lack of robustness in the results advises for further search of alternative protocols more suitable for machine learning classification and of better performing signal treatment techniques. Specific recommendations are made using the findings in this work.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Besançon, Besançon, France.|Cegos Deployment, Besançon, France.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Henriques
authors.affiliation: INSERM CIC 1431, Centre d'Investigation Clinique, CHU de Besançon, France.|EA 481 Laboratoire de Neurosciences de Besançon, Besançon, France.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gabriel
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Besançon, Besançon, France.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Grigoryeva
authors.affiliation: INSERM CIC 1431, Centre d'Investigation Clinique, CHU de Besançon, France.|EA 481 Laboratoire de Neurosciences de Besançon, Besançon, France.|Service de Psychiatrie de l'adulte, CHU de Besançon, France.|Fondation FondaMental, Créteil, France.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Haffen
authors.affiliation: INSERM CIC 1431, Centre d'Investigation Clinique, CHU de Besançon, France.|EA 481 Laboratoire de Neurosciences de Besançon, Besançon, France.|Département de Recherche en imagerie fonctionnelle, CHU de Besançon, France.|Service de neurologie, CHU de Besançon, France.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Moulin
authors.affiliation: INSERM CIC 1431, Centre d'Investigation Clinique, CHU de Besançon, France.|Espace Ethique Bourgogne/Franche-Comté, CHU de Besançon/Dijon, France.|Département douleur soins palliatifs, CHU de Besançon, France.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aubry
authors.affiliation: INSERM CIC 1431, Centre d'Investigation Clinique, CHU de Besançon, France.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pazart
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Besançon, Besançon, France juan-pablo.ortega@univ-fcomte.fr.|Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Besançon, France.
authors.forename: J-P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Ortega
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D066191:Sensorimotor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: EEG; EEG signal classification; awareness detection; evoked potentials; mental imagery