Electroencephalographic Phase–Amplitude Coupling in Simulated Driving With Varying Modality-Specific Attentional Demand

The quantification of attention during driving can help identify situations in which the driver is not completely aware of the situation. By using the principle of phase–amplitude coupling (PAC) in electroencephalographic (EEG) signals, we aimed to test if PAC might be eligible as a biomarker of attention in multimodal tasks such as driving. Surface EEG was measured simultaneously in drivers and copilots while participating in simulated driving scenarios with varying multimodal attentional demands. The PAC between Theta-band phase and Gamma-band amplitude from the EEG was obtained and evaluated. Results showed significant PAC differences between drivers and copilots in areas related to multimodal attention (prefrontal cortex, frontal eye fields, primary motor cortex, and visual cortex). The results were confirmed by behavioral data acquired during the test (detection task). We conclude that PAC does function as a biomarker for attentional demand by detecting cortical areas being activated through specific multimodal (in this case, driving) tasks.