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Updated: Jun 19, 2025
Computer-based Multitaper Spectrogram Program for Electroencephalographic Data
Published on: November 13, 2019
Spectral changes in electroencephalography linked to neuroactive medications: A computational pipeline for data
Anna Maxion1, Arnim Johannes Gaebler2, Rainer Röhrig3
1Research Group Neuroscience, Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research Within the Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
Background And Objectives:
The increasing amount of open-access medical data provides new opportunities to gain clinically relevant information without recruiting new patients. We developed an open-source computational pipeline, that utilizes the publicly available electroencephalographic (EEG) data of the Temple University Hospital to identify EEG profiles associated with the usage of neuroactive medications. It facilitates access to the data and ensures consistency in data processing and analysis, thus reducing the risk of errors and creating comparable and reproducible results. Using this pipeline, we analyze the influence of common neuroactive medications on brain activity.
Methods:
The pipeline is constructed using easily controlled modules. The user defines the medications of interest and comparison groups. The data is downloaded and preprocessed, spectral features are extracted, and statistical group comparison with visualization through a topographic EEG map is performed. The pipeline is adjustable to answer a variety of research questions. Here, the effects of carbamazepine and risperidone were statistically compared with control data and with other medications from the same classes (anticonvulsants and antipsychotics).
Results:
The comparison between carbamazepine and the control group showed an increase in absolute and relative power for delta and theta, and a decrease in relative power for alpha, beta, and gamma. Compared to antiseizure medications, carbamazepine showed an increase in alpha and theta for absolute powers, and for relative powers an increase in alpha and theta, and a decrease in gamma and delta. Risperidone compared with the control group showed a decrease in absolute and relative power for alpha and beta and an increase in theta for relative power. Compared to antipsychotic medications, risperidone showed a decrease in delta for absolute powers. These results show good agreement with state-of-the-art research. The database allows to create large groups for many different medications. Additionally, it provides a collection of records labeled as "normal" after expert assessment, which is convenient for the creation of control groups.
Conclusions:
The pipeline allows fast testing of different hypotheses regarding links between medications and EEG spectrum through ecological usage of readily available data. It can be utilized to make informed decisions about the design of new clinical studies.
