Muse Data Questions

[LWill]

Hi, I am loving the mind monitor app (thank you!) and currently using it to record Muse data for PhD research. However, I am hoping you can help answer a few questions I have about the data being collected.

1. Are we expecting all the waves at certain electrodes, or across the whole brain (=same pattern in all electrodes)?

2. Is it really always just pure ‘energy’ in the bands? Or are there other parameters, such as ‘fluctuation’ of the energy? (like a variance measure).

3. How would we know if our data / recordings are sufficient quality to properly analyse and hope to find differences? For example, if there has been a lot of movement, would this reduce the quality?

4. In the described effects, are there habituation effects? For example, when you relax, gamma may go up, but only for the first 5 min, then it returns to baseline

5. What is the time course of the effects. Are they pretty immediate? I relax, and bam my alpha is up? Or, when I relax, does alpha slowly goes up for 5 min to reach the new relaxed level only then (or after 1 min or 10 min?)

6. Are there physiological / theoretical explanations for this?

Thank you in advance.

[James]

#1 - Each electrode can be analysed individually, but you're taking a reading from skin contact and there's a whole lot of brain under that, so it's going to be indicative of an area.

#2 - The electrodes measure voltage, so anything that makes voltage will register. Static, Muscle movement etc. That's why it's important to get a clean signal.

#3 - Brainwaves are tiny fluctuations, Muscle movement (EMG) is relatively large. If you look at the RAW EEG, you want tiny bumps. If you see large spikes, this data should be discarded. As a test, blink or move your eyes rapidly and you'll see what I mean.

#4,5,6- Not sure - This is outside of my area of expertise! Hopefully others can answer.

[LWill]

Thank you, James!