Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience
Author: Maria Paula Saavedra | email: mapaulasaavedra@gmail.com
M. Paula Saavedra 1°, Catalina M. Galván 1°, Ruben D. Spies 1°, Victoria Peterson 1°
1° Instituto de Matemática Aplicada del Litoral, IMAL, UNL, CONICET, Argentina
Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) are reproducible electrical responses elicited by the brain when specific auditory stimuli are presented in a time-locked manner. In particular, mismatch negativity (MMN) is an AEP tipically observed in acoustic oddball paradigms and often used to study auditory discrimination. Although the typical waveform of such AEPs is well-known in the literature, changes may be observed due to the protocol, stimulus settings, reference electrode location and age of the participants. Here, we present a large and diverse electroencephalography (EEG) dataset coming from 64 participants aged between 7 and 70 years, acquired by a low-cost consumer-grade system. The stimulation protocol, based on the MMN paradigm, consisted of standard (1000 Hz beep, 30 ms) and deviant stimuli (500 Hz beep, 75 ms). Three protocol runs of 500 stimuli each were completed by each subject. Participants were instructed to watch a muted video while the stimuli were played in the background. The EEG was acquired at 250 Hz using an Electro-Cap System connected to an OpenBCI Cyton board. Eight EEG electrodes were placed on the frontal and central areas, using the ear lobes as reference and ground electrodes. A custom Python-based software was employed. Data analysis indicates that AEPs of similar waveshapes correspond to same-age groups and that such waveshapes are similar but not identical to those reported in the literature for different recording systems.