EEG power spectrum analysis for schizophrenia during mental activity

Cognitive dysfunction is a core defect for schizophrenia subjects. This is due to structural and functional abnormalities of the brain which can be determined using Electroencephalogram (EEG). The objective of this study is to analyze EEG in patients with schizophrenia using power spectral density during mental activity. The subjects included in this study are 52 schizophrenia subjects and 29 Normal subjects. EEG is recorded under resting condition and during mental activity. Two modified odd ball paradigms are designed to stimulate mental activity and named as stimulus 1 and stimulus 2. EEG signal is filtered using FIR band pass filter to extract delta, theta, alpha, and beta band EEG. This method measures powers of each band using Welch power spectral density method called absolute power. The absolute power of alpha band is low and beta band is high for schizophrenia subjects compared to normal subjects during rest and two stimuli. Student's t-test is used to find the significant features (p < 0.05) at each recording condition. The significant features from each recording condition are used to classify Schizophrenia using both BPN and SVM classifier. SVM classifier is produced maximum sensitivity of 91% when features from all recording conditions are combined together. Thus this work concludes that the mental activity EEG supports for classifying Schizophrenia from normal and hence absolute band powers can be used as features to identify Schizophrenia.