Can Brain Waves be Measured Non-Invasively for Schizophrenia Research?

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    Brain Frequency Waves
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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the measurement of brain waves, particularly in the context of schizophrenia research. Participants explore the nature of brain wave frequencies, the methods of measuring them, and the challenges associated with non-invasive techniques.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions the concept of brain wave frequency, suggesting it relates to the time it takes for brain waves to "refresh" and noting differences in frequency between awake and sleeping states.
  • Another participant provides a resource to help understand EEG and brain waves, mentioning various types of brainwave patterns with distinct frequencies.
  • A participant discusses the analysis of neural signals beyond EEG, including local field potentials (LFP) and their relevance to schizophrenia research, highlighting the growing interest in frequency domain analysis.
  • One participant inquires about the time required for the brain to process sounds and the decoding of consecutive sounds, indicating a curiosity about the temporal aspects of auditory processing.
  • Concerns are raised about the invasiveness of current research methods, specifically the use of depth electrodes in animal studies, and whether non-invasive methods exist for similar data collection in humans.
  • Several participants note that direct recordings from human brains typically occur only in the context of epilepsy surgeries, presenting a limitation in the data available for schizophrenia research.
  • There is a strong assertion that non-invasive data collection for LFP related to schizophrenia is not feasible, emphasizing the necessity of animal models for such research.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a lack of consensus regarding the feasibility of non-invasive methods for collecting brain wave data relevant to schizophrenia research, with some asserting it is impossible while others suggest the need for further exploration of alternatives.

Contextual Notes

The discussion highlights limitations in current research methodologies, particularly the reliance on invasive procedures for obtaining human electrophysiology data, which may not be applicable to broader schizophrenia research.

alexk307
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how can brain waves have a frequency. frequency is the amount of cycles per second. I'm guessing that this is the time it takes for brain waves to "refresh" I don't understand what it exactly means. The reason I'm asking is that when awake brainwaves are at a higher frequency than when sleeping.
 
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I think this link will help you understand an eeg and brainwaves:
http://www.crossroadsinstitute.org/eeg.html

There are several types of brainwave patterns with distinctive fequencies that have names like 'delta'... and so on.
 
EEG signals aren't the only place where we talk about power spectra. You can perform similar analyses on other (analog) neural signals such as local field potentials (LFP) or single unit activity binned spike count. Recently there's been a lot of interest in analyzing data this way. A lot of this stems from work done in Nikos Logothetis' lab showing LFP power in certain frequency bands correlating better with the fMRI BOLD response than the single unit activity does...

There's also been various hypotheses (some that have been around for a while) postulating that attentional effects are best characterized in the frequency domain (buzzword: neural synchrony). Also there's been a lot of interest in LFP oscillations in schizophrenia research...

Analysis of neural data in the frequency domain seems to be an exploding field.
 
I'm wondering about the time the brain needs to understand a sound.i know sounds are been transformed into electrical signals which brain understands.But what time is needed for the whole process(from the creation of the sound till we finally hear it)?And what time brain needs to decode 2 same sounds in row?
 
Cincinnatus said:
Also there's been a lot of interest in LFP oscillations in schizophrenia research...
I googled and found a paper about LFP research on monkeys.

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/28/22/5696

To perform the research they implanted depth electrodes, and had to dope the monkeys up considerably. Is there a non-invasive method of collecting this data as well?

As far as I know they only do depth electrodes on people who are being prepared for brain surgery, since a much more invasive procedure is going to follow anyway. I'm not aware it's ever done for research only. Heard anything about this?
 
Zoobyshoe is correct that we do only record directly from the brains of (consenting) brain surgery patients. So far this only happens during an intervening step in the middle of a long procedure that certain intractable epilepsy patients must go through...

The fact is that the only human electrophysiology data we have (or will ever have) is from epilepsy patients. This is a confounding variable that cannot easily be overcome.
 
Cincinnatus said:
Zoobyshoe is correct that we do only record directly from the brains of (consenting) brain surgery patients. So far this only happens during an intervening step in the middle of a long procedure that certain intractable epilepsy patients must go through...

The fact is that the only human electrophysiology data we have (or will ever have) is from epilepsy patients. This is a confounding variable that cannot easily be overcome.

Thanks. I am concerned about your mention of interest in LFP with respect to schizophrenia research, which raises the question of how they could collect any data non-invasively.
 
zoobyshoe said:
Thanks. I am concerned about your mention of interest in LFP with respect to schizophrenia research, which raises the question of how they could collect any data non-invasively.

They can't.

This is why animal models are necessary.
 

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