A Numerical Study of Information Entropy in EEG Wavelet Analysis

The purpose of this study is to numerically evaluate the performance of information entropy in electroencephalography (EEG) signal analysis. In particular, we use EEG data from an Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pilot study and apply several wavelet functions to determine the signals’ time and frequency characteristics. The wavelet entropy and wavelet sample entropy of the continuous wavelet transformed data are then determined at various scale ranges corresponding to major brain frequency bands. Non-parametric statistical analysis is then used to compare the entropy features of the EEG data obtained in trials with AD patients and age-matched healthy normal subjects under resting eyes-closed (EC) and eye-open (EO) conditions. The effectiveness and reliability of both choice of wavelet functions and the parameters used in wavelet sample entropy calculations are discussed and the ideal choices are identified. The result shows that, when applied to wavelet transformed filtered data, information entropy can be effective in determining EEG discriminant features, after selecting the best wavelet functions and window size of the sample entropy.