ESTIMATING THE HURST

EXPONENT IN MOTOR IMAGERYBASED BRAIN COMPUTER

INTERFACE
Authors: Roxana Aldea, Daniela Trniceriu
Affiliation: Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications
of the Gh. Asachi Technical University of Iasi

Motivation for brain computerinterface (BCI) research

Some diseases (amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis,
stroke or severe polyneuropathy )
- are manifested by complete
loss of voluntary control of
muscles.
This people have a normal
brain activity, but are not able to
communicate basic needs or
even to move

BCI definition
BCI - is a system that allows communication
without motion; the information is transmitted
only by thoughts translated into signals
generated by the brain.

The goal of BCI - translate human intentions in signals that control output devices.

BCI structure [Shih J.-2012]

Sensorimotor rhythms
- oscillations recorded on brain activity in somatic sensorimotor
areas, concentrated in the frequency bands of
mu rhythm (8-12 Hz)
beta rhythm (12-30 Hz).

Decreasing of oscillatory activity in a specific frequency band event related desynchronization - ERD.
Increase of oscillatory activity in a specific frequency band - event
related synchronization - ERS.
ERD/ERS can be produced by motor imagery.

Multiresolution wavelet analysis

MWA - successive low-pass and high-pass filtering and
subsampling ;

yL (n) x(n) * g (n)

x(k ) g (2n k ) ;

yH (n) x(n) * h(n)

x(k )h(2n k )

Hurst exponent
D 2 H
H- Hurst exponent, D- fractal dimension
D gives a measure of the roughness of surfaces (distribution
of the signal)
A small Hurst exponent - higher fractal dimension and a
rougher surface.
A larger Hurst exponent - lower fractal dimension and a
smoother surface.
A large value for Hurst exponent means desynchronization.

Hurst estimation with the

Aggregated Variance Method
The aggregated variance method its based on the self-similarity
property of the samples of a process.

1
( m)
Var ( X k )
M

M 1

( m)
2
(
X

X
(
m
))
i
i 0

X - a time series of length N

that is divided into M subseries
of length m.
X (m) denotes the average of
samples of X ( m )

The estimator of H is obtained by plotting Var ( X k( m ) ) versus m

on a log-log scale.

Hurst estimation with

Absolute Moment
Method
The absolute moment method is a generalization of the
aggregated variance method.

1
AM m
M

M 1

X
i 0

(m)
i

(m)

Basic results
The EEG data was recorded by means of a
g.tec acquisition system, g.MOBIlab+ module,
and BCI2000 platform.
Chosen channels : CP3, CP4, P3, C3, Pz, C4, P4 and Cz.

The recordings were performed on 16 healthy volunteers.

A monitor displays, successively, left and right
arrows. Subjects must carefully look at the arrows
and try to imagine the movement of the hand
indicated by the arrow.

Information about the frequency band of sensorimotor rhythms

and corresponding channels

The average of Hurst exponent computed with

the aggregated variance method

The average of Hurst exponent computed with

the absolute moments method

Conclusions
Sensorimotors rhythms features
multiresolution wavelet analysis
Hurst exponent.
Analysis - C3, CP3, C4 and CP4 channels of the EEG signals recorded for
ten subjects.
The channels are placed in the left and right hemisphere and are
considered to be the best for emphasize sensorimotor rhythms.
The multiresolution wavelet - decompose the signal into sub band
components of interest. The method reduced data dimension - important
advantage.

Conclusions
The absolute moments and aggregated variance methods - to estimate
the Hurst exponent -a very good discrimination of sensorimotor rhythms.
The maximum values for Hurst exponent
Coiflets3 and Symlets6 (15-30 Hz)
Coiflets3 (7.5-15 Hz)
The best result was obtained when we decomposed the signal with
Coiflets3 mother wavelet.

Subjects discriminated better the beta rhythm.

The values of the Hurst exponent were higher for
right hand motor imagery signal on channels C3 and CP3
left hand motor imagery signal on channels C4 and CP4

Thank you!