@article{MandekarHollandThielenetal.2022,
  author    = {Mandekar, Swati and Holland, Abigail and Thielen, Moritz and Behbahani, Mehdi and Melnykowycz, Mark},
  title     = {Advancing towards Ubiquitous EEG, Correlation of In-Ear EEG with Forehead EEG},
  series = {Sensors},
  volume    = {22},
  journal   = {Sensors},
  number    = {4},
  publisher = {MDPI},
  address   = {Basel},
  issn      = {1424-8220},
  doi       = {10.3390/s22041568},
  pages     = {1 -- 19},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {Wearable EEG has gained popularity in recent years driven by promising uses outside of clinics and research. The ubiquitous application of continuous EEG requires unobtrusive form-factors that are easily acceptable by the end-users. In this progression, wearable EEG systems have been moving from full scalp to forehead and recently to the ear. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that emerging ear-EEG provides similar impedance and signal properties as established forehead EEG. EEG data using eyes-open and closed alpha paradigm were acquired from ten healthy subjects using generic earpieces fitted with three custom-made electrodes and a forehead electrode (at Fpx) after impedance analysis. Inter-subject variability in in-ear electrode impedance ranged from 20 kΩ to 25 kΩ at 10 Hz. Signal quality was comparable with an SNR of 6 for in-ear and 8 for forehead electrodes. Alpha attenuation was significant during the eyes-open condition in all in-ear electrodes, and it followed the structure of power spectral density plots of forehead electrodes, with the Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.92 between in-ear locations ELE (Left Ear Superior) and ERE (Right Ear Superior) and forehead locations, Fp1 and Fp2, respectively. The results indicate that in-ear EEG is an unobtrusive alternative in terms of impedance, signal properties and information content to established forehead EEG.},
  language  = {en}
}
@inproceedings{MandekarJentschLutzetal.2021,
  author    = {Mandekar, Swati and Jentsch, Lina and Lutz, Kai and Behbahani, Mehdi and Melnykowycz, Mark},
  title     = {Earable design analysis for sleep EEG measurements},
  series = {UbiComp '21},
  booktitle = {UbiComp '21},
  doi       = {10.1145/3460418.3479328},
  pages     = {171 -- 175},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Conventional EEG devices cannot be used in everyday life and hence, past decade research has been focused on Ear-EEG for mobile, at-home monitoring for various applications ranging from emotion detection to sleep monitoring. As the area available for electrode contact in the ear is limited, the electrode size and location play a vital role for an Ear-EEG system. In this investigation, we present a quantitative study of ear-electrodes with two electrode sizes at different locations in a wet and dry configuration. Electrode impedance scales inversely with size and ranges from 450 kΩ to 1.29 MΩ for dry and from 22 kΩ to 42 kΩ for wet contact at 10 Hz. For any size, the location in the ear canal with the lowest impedance is ELE (Left Ear Superior), presumably due to increased contact pressure caused by the outer-ear anatomy. The results can be used to optimize signal pickup and SNR for specific applications. We demonstrate this by recording sleep spindles during sleep onset with high quality (5.27 μVrms).},
  language  = {en}
}