Age-Related Changes in Action Observation EEG Response and Its Effect on BCI Performance

Action observation-based brain-computer interface (AO-BCI) can simultaneously elicit steady-state motion visual evoked potential in the occipital region and sensorimotor rhythm in the sensorimotor region, demonstrating substantial potential in neurorehabilitation applications. While current AO-BCI r...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fukang Zeng, Xingyu Wen, Hongmei Tang, Guiyu Hu, Wensheng Hou, Xin Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering
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Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10982272/
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Summary:Action observation-based brain-computer interface (AO-BCI) can simultaneously elicit steady-state motion visual evoked potential in the occipital region and sensorimotor rhythm in the sensorimotor region, demonstrating substantial potential in neurorehabilitation applications. While current AO-BCI research primarily focuses on the younger population, this study conducted a comparative investigation of age-related differences in EEG response to the AO-BCI by enrolling 18 older and 18 younger subjects. We employed task discriminant component analysis (TDCA) to decode observed actions and performed comprehensive analyses of prefrontal EEG responses, i.e. approximate entropy (ApEn), sample entropy (SamEn), and rhythm power ratios (RPR), and the whole-brain functional network. Regression analyses were subsequently conducted to analyze the effects on the classification accuracy. Results revealed significantly diminished TDCA accuracy in older subjects (77.01% <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm ~14.67$ </tex-math></inline-formula>%) compared to younger subjects (87.22% <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm ~15.22$ </tex-math></inline-formula>%). Age-dependent EEG responses emerged across multiple dimensions: 1) Prefrontal ApEn, SamEn, and RPR exhibited distinct aging patterns; 2) Brain network analysis uncovered significant intergroup differences in <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\alpha $ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> band connectivity strength; 3) <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\theta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> band network topology demonstrated reduced prefrontal nodal degree along with enhanced global efficiency in older subjects. Regression analysis identified a robust inverse relationship between the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta $ </tex-math></inline-formula>/<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\theta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> RPR during stimulation and overall accuracy. And the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta $ </tex-math></inline-formula>/<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\theta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> RPR and the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\beta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> band ApEn might be the main factor that causing individual differences in the identification accuracy in older and younger subjects, respectively. This study provides novel insights into age-related neuro-mechanisms in AO-BCI, establishing quantitative relationships between specific EEG features and BCI performance. These findings would offer guidelines for optimizing AO-BCI in rehabilitation.
ISSN:1534-4320
1558-0210