Description

Processing of neuronal activity (EEG and MEG) for assistance towards the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases. Neurodegenerative diseases encompass a number of cognitive disorders which affect the brain cortex. For this reason, it is logical to hypothesize that the electromagnetic fields generated in the cerebral cortex will be affected to some extent. When talking of electromagnetic fields it is possible to differentiate between bioelectric activity, registered through electroencephalogram (EEG), and biomagnetic activity, registered through magnetoencephalograma (MEG). Both registers show structural and functional faults of diseases which affect the brain cortex, and even though they reflect different features of brain electromagnetic activity, they are related and are able to provide useful information to assist the diagnosis of this kind of pathologies. The main goal of this line of research is to study and apply new measures of neuronal connection and novel parameters derived from network theory, spectral analysis and non-lineal analysis techniques in order to detect the alterations produced in the organization and functioning of the patient’s neural network. Structural and functional features of the neural network which allow to define pathological patterns are to be defined. They are useful to understand the evolution of the dynamics of EEG and MEG activity in several pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression, PD, among others. The study of EEG and MEG registers may reveal essential information about functional and structural shortage associated to this neuropathologies and provide results in the following sense:- Symptomatic studies of neurodegenerative diseases according to the subject’s age. - Evaluation of the efectiveness of non-pharmacological therapies. - Identification of new biomarkers for an early detection.

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