Advanced Signal Processing Techniques for the Estimation of Cortical Connectivity in Humans

This book describes some advanced mathematical signal processing techniques applied to the estimation of the cortical connectivity in humans from non-invasive electroencephalographic recordings. In the last ten years, imaging devices have conveyed a lot of new information about brain functions in different experimental conditions. In every case, the biomedical engineers, together with mathematicians, physicists, and physicians are called upon to elaborate on signals related to brain activity to extract meaningful and robust information to correlate with the external behavior of the subjects. Different signal processing tools used in telecommunications and other field of engineering or even social sciences have been adapted and re-used in the neuroscience field. The present book offers a short presentation of several methods for the estimation of the cortical connectivity of the human brain. The methods presented are relatively simple to implement, robust, and can return valuable information about the causality of the activation of the different cortical areas in humans using non-invasive electroencephalographic recordings. For these reasons, they are among the most used tools in modern neuroscientific research. The knowledge of such signal processing tools will enrich the arsenal of the computational methods that an engineer or a mathematician can apply in the processing of brain signals. A comprehensive presentation of these connectivity estimation methods is lacking in the literature and this book represents a step in filling the gap.