Francisco Vigil
Pronouns: They/Them
Research Mentor(s): Jane Huggins
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation / Medicine
Program:
Authors: Francisco Vigil, Jane Huggins
Session: Session 3: 11:00 am – 11: 50 am
Poster: 27
Abstract
EEG (electroencephalogram) data is a ubiquitous form of information in neurological science as it is one of the primary methods of measuring brain activity. Therefore, creating effective ways to extract meaning from EEG data, which can be overwhelming and difficult to parse in its raw form, is important. For use by the (University of Michigan Direct Brain Interface) lab, 15 functions were created in the MATLAB (The MathWorks, Inc. (2024). MATLAB version: 9.11.0.2358333 (R2021b)) environment to manipulate and visualize the marked data coming from EEG experiments. These functions accessed and manipulated custom data structures to store our EEG data in MATLAB. This involved navigating through a structure or recursively scanning a structure to find the desired numerical data or data flags. A group of functions were designed to work with previously packaged EEG data to extract data flags and visualize them in an intuitive and customizable way. The goal of other functions was directly extracting a participant’s responses to stimuli from EEG data and plotting the responses. All of the functions were successful in providing a quick and effective method of visualizing data for other researchers to check the viability of data and the results of experiments. Without these functions a member of the research group would have to write their own code to accomplish the tasks that the new functions can do very quickly. These functions provide effective ways for future students and members of the UMDBI laboratory using EEG data to extract and handle their datasets. For Brain-Computer Interfaces these functions are especially relevant in improving the performance of a BCI protocol. This could directly impact thousands of individuals who may need a BCI to communicate or perform actions. Human BCIs are still in their early stages so moving forward, having effective methods to deal with datasets will be important.
