A phase lag index hardware calculation for real-time electroencephalography studies

Among the different techniques used for the analysis of electroencephalograms, the phase lag index has become an important method for the calculation of the functional brain connectivity. Currently, this method is implemented offline due to its high computational complexity restricting it from real-time applications that would require an online neurofeedback. In this paper, we propose a new architecture to calculate the phase lag index of electroencephalograms in real-time. As a proof of concept, a 32 bit and 16-channel system running at 188.32 MHz was synthesized on a Stratix IV GX FPGA. The system was tested and the simulations demonstrated that the system could perform the calculation of the Phase lag index at least 66 times faster than the MATLAB software with a mean square error of less than 5.72×10−6.