Robust, high temporal-resolution EEG functional connectivity detects increased connectivity coinciding with P300 in visual short-term memory binding in both familial and sporadic prodromal Alzheimer’s Disease

The Electroencephalogram (EEG) provides a very high temporal resolution of brain activity. This allows for directly recording the electromagnetic activity of the brain during cognitive tasks. In theory, the EEG contains important discriminative information relating to sequential processes of the brain’s response to different tasks. Using measures of coupling such as correlation, coefficients, or frequency-based measures such as coherence or phase-lag or locking measures one can construct weighted networks of functional connectivity of EEG signals, allowing us to begin analysing the activity of the functional networks of the brain at a high temporal resolution. However, there are several setbacks for scalp EEG,the foremost of which is the high levels of noise present in the signal. This is particularly challenging when looking to uncover the functional connectivity related to transient cognitive processes on the order of tens of milliseconds. A key problem in function connectivity of EEG signals is how to extract reliable estimates of connectivity in such short time windows.