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Understanding the effect of relaxation music on human Brainwaves

Kumanayake D.N., Kumanayake H.M., Jr., Lakshitha D.L.D.A. & Senanayake S.S.H.M.U.L.
AbstractIn recent years, a lot of research has focus on the physiological effect of music. The electroencephalographic (EEG) is often used to verify the influence of music on human brain activity. This study was conducted to understand the effects of relaxation music on Alpha and Beta rhythms of the subjects EEG. Research shows Alpha waves are predominantly observed in healthy relaxed individuals. For each subject, three EEG recordings were taken. One before listening to the music, one after one minute and the last towards the end of listening to music. The analysis showed that there was an increase in the maximum amplitude, mean and the standard deviation of Alpha waves power and decline in those parameters for Beta waves towards the end of the stimuli.

I. INTRODUCTION

usic's interconnection with society can be seen throughout history. Every known culture on the earth has music. Music seems to be one of the basic actions of humans. During the last decades, information about the relationship between music and human brain has become more and more important in human-computer interaction. In contemporary society stress arises from many sources, afflicting many persons. Due to this reason services and products aiding relaxation are being increasingly developed and marketed, one form of which is music being used in medical treatment. Music is the pattern of sounds produced by people singing or playing instruments. It plays an important role in the whole society. Music has a great effect on the body and the mind. Music therapy is one of the developing fields of healthcare which uses music to heal many diseases are being cured using music as it lowers the blood pressure, makes the body calm, lessen pain and so on. Depending on the way sound waves are listened to or pronounced, they have an impact in the way the neurological (brain and nerve) system works in the human body. Music has played a role in relaxation since ancient times. The electroencephalogram (EEG) was first recorded by Hans Berger in 1924 by attaching electrodes on human skull. The EEG signals are measured using electrodes placed on the scalps is noninvasive method, which records the electrical fields generated by the nervous cells. In this study a single channel EEG system is used for acquire brain signals and signal processing was done using MATLAB software. With the help of Fourier Transformation, the EEG signals are classified into four different frequency bands: Delta (<4Hz), Theta (48 Hz), Alpha (812 Hz) and Beta (1330 Hz). According to previous findings the Alpha rhythms is dominated in a relaxation state of consciousness and eye closed over the occipital cortex. The Beta rhythms is related with active, busy or anxiety and active
Department of Electrical & Information Engineering Faculty of Engineering University of Ruhuna

concentration. The Delta rhythm is often associated with young and underlying lesions. Theta rhythm is associated with drowsiness, childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. In recent years, a lot of research has shown that music has physiological effect which is quantifiable [1]-[3]. However, in the electroencephalographic (EEG), some research makes use of EEG to verify the influence of music on human brain activity. This research has emphasized on the development of tools and methods for analyzing bio-signals, especially EEG with musical signal stimuli. Spectral analysis based on Fourier transform is the typical method used to analyze EEG. Different bands of EEG have been defined to describe the different physiological conditions. In music-related researches, the band powers are important parameters. Fitzgibbon et al. [4] investigated sustained human gamma EEG oscillations and found that all of the cognitive tasks augmented gamma power relative to a control condition. These study conclusions that widespread gamma activation of cortical EEG can easily be demonstrated during mental activity. Many types of music have been used as the music stimuli to discover the brain activity and the physiological effect [5]-[9]. They are still investigating the interrelation between music and emotions. Different bands of EEG have been defined to describe the different physiological conditions [1, 2]. Individuals who are exposed to the suitable selection of music demonstrate significant reductions in state of anxiety and increase the relaxation levels [8]-[10]. Alpha frequency gives a significant effect in showing emotions [11]. They had proven that different type of stimuli make the brain response differently. Alpha can replicate the brain relaxed wakefulness and when there is significant activity on other part of the brain, the alpha power decreases. This study will be focusing on find variations in Alpha & Beta bands of human EEG. The maximum amplitude, mean and standard deviation of Alpha was considered as parameters to measure the level of alpha and beta activity. The selected musical piece is expected to bring relaxation to the mind of the participants. II. METHODOLOGY A. Data Acquisition EEG is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp of a subject produced by the firing of neurons within the brain. EEG was recorded with the following instrumental setting. To obtain the EEG signals two silver electrodes were placed on the scalp of the subject. Then the captured signal was amplified into a certain level which can be digitalized properly. The major tasks of the system was to deal with noise

2 interferences. Therefore the amplified signal was filtered out to cancel the unwanted artifacts from the desired signal. After that the filtered analog signal was digitized. We used a circuit called ARDUINO for the purpose of A/D conversion. Then the digitalized signal was taken into a computer through the serial port.

D. Signal Processing All the signals acquired by the hardware system were analyzed using the software program built in MATLAB. It was consist with numerous functions to handle and process EEG data. Since our system utilizes a Computer to visualize & analyze signal processing it has to be converted to a digital signal and transmitted to the PC. The digital sub section is responsible for carry out this task For the task of converting Analog signal in to digital form a microcontroller known as Arduino Duemilanove ATmega328 was used. Arduino has an Analog to Digital converter module, with a maximum resolution of 10 bits. Another special feature in Arduino board is when it is connected to a computer using USB it create a virtual serial port on machine and enables serial communication with microcontroller through USB. By setting the baud rate of microcontroller to 19200 bps, MATLAB program collects 414 samples per second which is a very good sampling rate for EEG signals. MATLAB software was used for our signal acquisition and processing System mainly due to its abilities on capture serial data, digital signal processing, plotting capability & complex mathematical calculations. MATLAB Guide was used to develop a graphical user interface which was very convenient for this research data manipulation. The developed interface is shown in figure 2. This interface shows the time domain and frequency domain representation of signal. And from this we also can find mean & standard deviation of time signal and mean, standard deviation & peak values of frequency domain Alpha & Beta components separately. For the frequency domain representation MATLAB command Y = fft(X) built in to MATLAB was used to get Fast Fourier Transform of the signal. Calculation of the Mean is done by MATLAB command M = mean(X). Standard deviation of the required signal components were found by MATLAB command S=std(X) and peak value of a selected signal component by C = max(X) where X is the input signal and Y, M, S, C are outputs from computation respectively.

Figure 1: System Overview The Instrumentation amplifier (INA 114) used in the beginning of the signal acquisition section has been designed to have a gain around 12 with CMRR of 115 dB. The next amplification stage consists of two operational amplifiers built to get the necessary gain. After the instrumentation amplifier, there is a high pass filter with cutoff frequency is about 0.16Hz which is designed to remove DC offsets. Then 3rd order low pass filter with a cutoff frequency (fc) = 59 Hz which provides a gain of 16 at first amplification stage and gain of 40 at second amplification stage, with the operational amplifier TLC 277 at its center. The total gain provided by filter circuit is 640. A notch filter is used to remove a particular frequency. In our design low pass cutoff frequency is 59 Hz. Therefore 50Hz power line noise is added to the output. Because of that we design 50 Hz notch filer using Op-amp TLC 277 to reject power line noise. B. Subjects This study involved 10 healthy subjects, 5 male and 5 females from Faculty of Engineering University of Ruhuna. All participants aged 23-25 years. Prior to the experiment the participants did not take any medication and had no experience of relaxation training. C. Experimental Design The experiment was conducted in a room with a controlled environment which has minimum noises as much as possible. During the recording sessions, subjects sit on a chair with eyes closed and were instructed not to move. Subjects hear the relaxation music stimuli through headphones. Each recording session was divided into three sequential periods. For each session, brainwave was recorded without any music with eyes opened. After this period, the subject need to listen to relax music for 3 minutes with closed eye and EEG is recorded simultaneously at the beginning and end of the session. During those periods, samples of two seconds each were recorded for every subject. Before listening to music At the Beginning of listening to music At the End of listening to music

2 Seconds

2 Seconds

2 Seconds

3 c) Figure 2: Developed Graphical User Interface E. Data Analysis 1) Time Domain The signals were observed and analyzed in time domain to find specific features in them. But since the EEG is a nonstationary signal, it was highly difficult to observe dominant feature related to relaxation effect in time domain. Therefore Only the mean and standard deviation of the signal was considered in calculations. The mean value and standard deviation of the voltage signal is obtained in MATLAB software and plotted against each subject for all three instances. Graph 1 and 2 shows the mean and standard deviation of the voltage values of recorded EEG signals. 2) Frequency Domain The signals recorded using the capturing system were analyzed in frequency domain using Fourier transform to extract features in them. In frequency domain analysis all EEG data were filtered accordingly to delta (), theta (), alpha () and beta () bands. Bands of interest are the alpha and beta. Maximum value, Mean and Standard Deviation of power values were calculated for all subjects using the software. We have used three statistical analysis parameters, namely maximum amplitude of signal power, mean and the standard deviation.
a)

Standard deviation:

Standard Deviation is a measure of how much variation or dispersion there is from the mean. It is calculated as the square root of variance. Low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the mean. Whereas high standard deviation indicates the data are spread out over a large range values. Graph 8 - Graph 11 shows the standard deviation of power values of recorded EEG signals. III. RESULTS A. Time Domain

Graph 1: Mean of voltage values comparison for before, in the beginning and in the end of relaxation

Maximum spectrum:

value

of

power

in

frequency

The Maximum amplitude of Alpha and Beta waves frequency spectrums versus subject plots are presented in Graph 1- Graph 3. Graphs are plotted separately for periods, before, in the beginning and in the end of listening to the relaxation music.
b)

Mean:
Graph 2: Standard deviation of voltage values comparison for before, in the

The mean of the Fourier transformed EEG signal was calculated using the MATLAB software. Group bar charts for alpha and beta bands of all subjects are shown in Graphs 6Graph 8.

beginning B. Frequency Domain and in the end of relaxation

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Graph 6: Mean values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands before relaxation

Graph 3: Maximum values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands before relaxation

Graph 7: Mean values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the beginning of relaxation

Graph 4: Maximum values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the beginning of relaxation

Graph 8: Mean values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the end of relaxation

Graph 5: Maximum values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the end of relaxation

Graph 9: Standard deviation of power values Comparison of Alpha & Beta bands before relaxation

5 of artifacts do not unduly influence the measurement. The analysis in the frequency domain was proven to be more successful than in the time domain. Compared with the before and in the beginning of listening to music; the alpha wave component increased towards the end of the relaxation session. On the other hand, the beta component decreased. Also this result was seen in all three aspects of measurement; the maximum value, the mean and the standard deviation of Fourier transformed signal for almost all subjects. The Graph 3- Graph 5 shows that the maximum amplitude of Alpha wave powers increases either beginning of the stimulus or in end of the stimulus suggesting that the subjects have reached the Alpha state of mind. This shows an increase in the relaxation and concentration attained by the subject. At the same time decline in Beta activity indicates the decrease in higher state of alertness to external stimuli and tension. The Graph 6- Graph 8 shows the average power of Alpha and Beta component powers. The Graph 9- Graph 11shows the dispersion of Alpha and Beta component powers. It is observed that there is a dramatic increase in the Alpha power, and decline in the Beta activity, in the results towards the end of the listening session. Also it should be noted that the power level values have decreased toward the end of stimuli for both Alpha and Beta frequency bands. This can be considered as a reduction of stress in mind. During the process of listening to relaxation music, an increasing Alpha level than the Beta level suggested that the subject was in the relaxed state. During alpha awareness the mind is relaxed and alert. It is a state of passive awareness, composure, and of physical and mental relaxation. Emotional sensations in the alpha state include a sense of well-being, pleasure and tranquility. Alpha appears to bridge the conscious to the subconscious. V. CONCLUSIONS Since anxiety and stress are major emotional contents of human beings, the goal of this experiment is to assess the means of relaxation and concentration using relaxation music, which influence the alpha and beta rhythms significantly. The main interest of the present study constitute of the analyzing the EEG in time domain and frequency domain during listening to the relaxation music. Analysis results for 10 subjects showed that music relaxation could increase Alpha activity and decrease Beta activity in human brain.

Graph 10: Standard deviation of power values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the beginning of relaxation

Graph 11: Standard deviation of power values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the end of relaxation

IV. DISCUSSION The main goal of this study was to understand the effects of relaxation music on Alpha and Beta rhythms of the subjects EEG. In order to compare the differences between alpha and beta bands of subjects for listening to the relaxation music, we statistical parameters namely, the maximum value, mean and standard deviation of the signal. The mean values of time domain signal voltage over ten subjects during three situations have shown no significant differences in our experiments (Graph 1). Even though with this experiment it was not successful to verify that signal voltage decreases with the level of relaxation, however we have found the average voltage (mean) of human voltage lie almost in same range for all subjects. Graph 2 shows the dispersion of Alpha and Beta component powers. This indicates consistency in the beginning and end of recordings. And also shows that extreme values

However measuring brain waves alone in subjects listening to relaxation piece to determine the relationship between music and brain waves presents problems. We cannot, for example, know either the effect caused by listening to the music piece alone or that caused by any other means. And, the non-stationary nature of EEG signal presented some differences in expected

6 results for time domain analysis. Also, there might be small variations in the recorded values due to line noise, electrode movement, eye muscle movements etc. The EEG system used to acquire brain signals is need to be developed further; which might also affected the result to some extent. In the future works we must pay attention to reduce those problems. For more successful results number of channels used to extract the alpha wave and the beta wave component must be increased, since they cannot be extracted accurately in a single channel. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to express gratitude to Dr. P.D.C. Perera, Dr. K. Pirapaharan and Dr K. Gunawikrama. Department of electrical & Information Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Ruhun, for .. and to participants for their assistance to the experiment. REFERENCES [1]
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