Wearable Device for Wireless EEG and PPG Data Collection

The use of EEG’s to document and understand neurological basis for psychophysiological disease is a well established practice in medicine. Unfortunately, one limiting factor in EEG’s is the need for patients to be in the hospital being examined by an EEG during an event (like an epileptic seizure, sleep apnea event, or other abnormal activity). This means that if no abnormal activity occurs during a medical appointment, a condition may not be assessed or even identified. Since the advent of fitness trackers for the health conscious wearer has made understanding of cardiovascular health more accessible to the general population by allowing wearers to keep track of their own health and document potential concerns, a prototype biosignal tracking device was developed to combine the functionality of a PPG and a single channel EEG, for the potential applications of better understanding and tracking psychophysiological states, including high stress and anxiety. The prototype wearable device uses an earclip PPG sensor for tracking cardiovascular biometrics, while a single-channel in ear EEG electrode is used alongside a reference to measure brain activity near the inner ear. Preliminary comparisons confirmed that the in ear electrode signal is consistent with waveforms acquired by more traditional EEGs for the temporal and parietal lobes. The device aims to enable the wireless transmission of PPG and EEG, using MATLAB for signal processing, in order to increase the accessibility and versatility of EEG and PPG