Individual test-retest reliability of evoked and induced alpha activity in human EEG data

Diverse psychological mechanisms have been associated with modulations of different EEG frequencies. To the extent of our knowledge, there are few studies of the test-retest reliability of these modulations in the human brain. To assess evoked and induced alpha reliabilities related to cognitive processing, EEG data from twenty subjects were recorded in 58 derivations in two different sessions separated by 49.5 ± 48.9 (mean ± standard deviation) days. A visual oddball was selected as the cognitive task, and three main parameters were analyzed for evoked and induced alpha modulations (latency, amplitude and topography). Latency and amplitude for evoked and induced modulations showed stable behavior between the two sessions. The correlation between sessions for alpha evoked and induced topographies in the grand average (group level) was r = 0.923, p<0.001; r = 0.962, p<0.001, respectively. The within-subject correlation values for evoked modulation ranged from 0.472 to 0.974 (mean: 0.766), whereas induced activity showed a different range, 0.193 to 0.892 (mean: 0.655). Individual analysis of the test-retest reliability showed a higher heterogeneity in the induced modulation, probably due to the heterogeneous phases found in the second case. However, despite this heterogeneity in phase values for induced activity relative to the onset of the stimuli, an excellent correlation score was obtained for group topography, with values that were better than those of the grand average evoked topography. As a main conclusion, induced alpha activity can be observed as a stable and reproducible response in the cognitive processing of the human brain.