Effective Synchronization of EEG and EMG for Mobile Brain/Body Imaging in Clinical Settings

Mobile Brain/Body Imaging (MoBI) is rapidly gaining traction as a new imaging modality to study how cognitive processes support locomotion. Electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyogram (EMG), due to their time resolution, non-invasiveness and portability are the techniques of choice for MoBI, but synchronization requirements among others restrict its use to high-end research facilities. Here we test the effectiveness of a technique that enables us to achieve MoBI-grade synchronization of EEG and EMG, even when other strategies (such as Lab Streaming Layer (LSL)) cannot be used e.g., due to the unavailability of proprietary Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which is often the case in clinical settings. The proposed strategy is that of aligning several spikes at the beginning and end of the session. We delivered a train of spikes to the EEG amplifier and EMG electrodes every 2 s over a 10-min time period. We selected a variable number of spikes (from 1 to 10) both at the beginning and end of the time series and linearly resampled the data so as to align them. We then compared the misalignment of the "middle" spikes over the whole recording to test for jitter and synchronization drifts, highlighting possible nonlinearities (due to hardware filters) and estimated the maximum length of the recording to achieve a [-5 to 5] ms misalignment range. We demonstrate that MoBI-grade synchronization can be achieved within 10-min recordings with a 1.7 ms jitter and [-5 5] ms misalignment range. We show that repeated spike delivery can be used to test online synchronization options and to troubleshoot synchronization issues over EEG and EMG. We also show that synchronization cannot rely only on the equipment sampling rate advertised by manufacturers. The synchronization strategy described can be used virtually in every clinical environment, and may increase the interest among a broader spectrum of clinicians and researchers in the MoBI framework, ultimately leading to a better understanding of the brain processes underlying locomotion control and the development of more effective rehabilitation approaches.