On the Operational Utility of Measures of Multichannel EEGs

Abstract

Multichannel EEGs were obtained from healthy participants in the eyes-closed no-task condition and in the eyes-open condition (where the alpha component is typically abolished). EEG dynamics in the two conditions were quantified with two related binary Lempel–Ziv measures of the first principal component, and with three measures of integrated information, including the more recently proposed integrated synergy. Both integrated information and integrated synergy with model order p=1 had greater values in the eyes-closed condition. When the model order of integrated synergy was determined with the Bayesian Information Criterion, this pattern was reversed, and in line with the other measures, integrated synergy was greater in the eyes-open condition. Eyes-open versus eyes-closed separation was quantified by calculating the between-condition effect size. The Lempel–Ziv complexity of the first principal component showed greater separation than the measures of integrated information.

Keywords

• integrated information theory
• Lempel–Ziv complexity
• multichannel EEGs
• electroencephalography