Analysis of EEG Microstates During Execution of a Nine Hole Peg Test

Electroencephalogram(EEG) microstates are brief periods of time during which the brain's electrical activity remains stable. The analysis of EEG microstates can help to identify the background neuronal activity at the millisecond level. The utilization of haptic and robotic technologies can help in evaluating human motor skills. A haptic device Geomagic Touch is used in this study to recreate Nine Hole Peg Test (NHPT) in an embedded reality setup. A preliminary study is conducted to explore changes in neural assemblies related to resting state and fine motor state EEG when fatigue sets in. Five healthy participants are recruited to perform a haptic NHPT under different physical conditions. Three distinct microstates are observed during the resting state and a separate set of 3 states are observed during the NHPT. Changes are assessed by utilising microstate parameters such as occurrence, coverage, duration, and global explained variance. It is found that the coverage of microstate C for resting states decreases for all the participants after the dumbbell exercise. During the fine-motor task, the coverage of microstate MS3 decreases for all participants except one. These results support the involvement of different neural assemblies, but also highlight the potential that physical fatigue can be observed and identified by assessing changes in microstate features, in this case, a parameter such as coverage.