Cortico-muscular coherence enhancement via coherent Wavelet enhanced Independent Component Analysis

Functional coupling between the motor cortex and muscle activity is usually detected and characterized using the spectral method of cortico-muscular coherence (CMC) between surface electromyogram (sEMG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded synchronously under motor control task. However, CMC is often weak and not easily detectable in all individuals. One of the reasons for the low levels of CMC is the presence of noise and components unrelated to the considered tasks in recorded sEMG and EEG signals. In this paper we propose a method for enhancing relative levels of sEMG components coherent with synchronous EEG signals via a variant of Wavelet Independent Component Analysis combined with a novel component selection algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated using data collected in neurophysiologcal experiments.