EEG & Alertness Detection
LAB-GUIDE
Welcome to the third lab session of the course! You should print this document and bring it with you.
This lab is perhaps the hardest lab of the five, but it shouldn't be too bad. It is the most timeconsuming to set up because each electrode must be individually prepared with the conductive
adhesive paste. Clean up may take a few extra minutes also. Still, you should be able to complete the
lab in under two and a half hours.
Before starting the lab itself, find the BioRadio 150 unit, make sure there are batteries in it and turn it
on. Remember to be careful with the lab equipment.
Open the BioRadio Capture Lite program. We'll first configure the BioRadio inputs to suitable
settings for the EEG laboratories. Click the 'CONFIG' button. Load the LabAlertnessDetect
configuration file. Now click 'Program'. Take note of the settings and think about why they are set
that way.
Close the BioRadio Capture Lite software and open the CleveLabs software.
You will need to Log In before you can access any labs. If you are having problems storing your signals
(Clevemed has not solved this problem yet for the highly protected computer environment in the
student lab), the TA will supply data for later analysis.
Open the EEG I lab session and click the book in the top right corner to see the lab manual. You will
have viewed this while doing your Pre-lab.
Watch the video showing the skin-prep and the electrode placement. Note that the video uses paste
from a can, but we will use paste from a tube. The tube can be really difficult to squeeze- but keep at
it- the paste will come out. Choose a group member who will be the test subject for the day. Since all
three of the CleveLab sessions we'll be going through today use the same setup, there's no point in
changing subjects mid-lab.
Read through the set-up instructions on page six and seven. Once you're set up, go ahead and start
into the procedure and data collecting section. Complete all steps, remembering to focus on your
understanding of what's happening. The subject won't be able to see the clearer pattern when his or
her eyes are closed. Take a look at another group's data and compare it with what your group is seeing
so the subject can see clear alpha waves.
Go through the data analysis and discussion questions with your partner. Don't worry about actually
doing numbers six or seven, though they are neat to think about. Remember to talk with the T.A.
enough to get some marks.
Prepared by Joel Hilchey for Dr. H. deBruin, Summer 2005
EEG & Alertness Detection Lab-Guide
1EEG & Alertness Detection
Go back to the Main Menu and open EEG II. Don't bother opening the lab manual for this section.
Click Start to view your own EEG again. Click the tab labelled “Sample EEG” and view each of the
abnormal EEG data files- they each last for about a minute, so make you you view the whole thing.
Read the descriptions and discuss with your partner the characteristics you can see. View your own
signal again. Have the subject blink rapidly. Does this signal look like any of the abnormal EEG
signals you viewed? What about when the subject shakes his or her head during recording?
Try clicking the tab for JTFA. Set the data to process to be Grand Mal and keep the other settings as
Gabor Method. Click 'GO' and check out the pretty colours that come up in the spectrograph. Notice
the colours and how they align with the signal itself. This will be the farthest we go with JTFA.
Go back to the main menu again and open the Alertness Detection laboratory. Open the manual by
clicking the book icon and start at page six. You'll notice you've already completed most of the steps
until number 10. If you're forgotten the frequency range you saw, you may wish to review it again. It's
difficult to get clearly, so just do the best you can and tweak it later.
Complete the procedure, but omit the final step (18). Adjust the parameters in the Processing and
Analysis tab to get your mental state detector and eyes open/closed detector working as well as you
can. Discuss some issues you had and how you dealt with them with the TAs to convince them you
know what you're doing.
Don't worry about the data analysis section, but go through the discussion questions with your
partner.
Make sure you've talked with the TAs enough to convince them you know what you're talking about and earn your full lab
performance mark. Check in with them before packing up so that if they want you to demonstrate anything, you and your
partner can easily do so.
Clean up your lab station before you leave. Cleaning up may take 10-15 minutes. Completely clean out
the gold cup electrodes of paste and throw out all the gauze and other disposables you used. The gold
cup electrodes are NOT disposables, if you hadn't realized already. Don't throw those out.
Prepared by Joel Hilchey for Dr. H. deBruin, Summer 2005
EEG & Alertness Detection Lab-Guide
2EEG & Alertness Detection