EEG-based early diagnosis for parkinson’s disease and dementia and its application with brain stethoscope

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that leads to motor disability and cognitive impairment. It is important to distinguish PD from other forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but differential diagnosis is difficult because PD-D is accompanied with AD and vice versa. Besides, their symptoms are similar. Electroencephalography (EEG) can be useful for quick and simple diagnosis. Few studies have compared the EEG characteristics of PD and AD because EEG measurement is difficult, as PD lesions are located in the substantia nigra and subcortical regions and EEG patterns show similar slowing activity in both PD and AD patients. In this study, two methods were suggested for the diagnosis of PD.First, non-linear dynamics and the regularity of EEG were examined using Approximate Entropy (ApEn). One time delay selected by Auto Mutual Information (AMI) and 2 embedding dimensions selected by False Nearest Neighbors (FNN) were used as features of ApEn. ApEn values were decreased in patients in most channels, and ApEn values in PD patients were significantly lower than those in AD patients in channels F3-C3 and C3-P3. These results showed that EEG patterns are simple and regular in the cognitively impaired brain. In particular, the difference in ApEn values between PD and AD patients in frontocentral channels might have resulted from motor disability in PD patients because the frontocentral cortex is related to the motor area. An increase in regularity in patients might be correlated with slowing brain activity, as seen in the results from spectral analysis. This method can be used to differentiate between PD patients and controls as well as to differentiate between PD patients and AD patients.Next, a Brain Stethoscope was designed by mapping low-alpha (8-10 Hz) power and low-beta (12-20 Hz) into low-pitched sound and high-pitched sound. Low-alpha power was dominant in PD patients, and low-beta power was dominant in controls. This resul...