Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Biomedical Engineering and Sciences

First Advisor

Careesa Chang Liu

Second Advisor

Sujoy Ghosh Hajra

Third Advisor

Xianqi Li

Fourth Advisor

Linxia Gu

Abstract

Blink-related oscillations (BROs) are neurophysiological responses observed in electroencephalography (EEG) following spontaneous blinking, reflecting the brain processing of new visual information. Prior research has demonstrated BRO responses across various cognitive states, such as resting, cognitive loading, and sensory stimulation, highlighting their potential as a non-invasive biomarker of brain function. We conducted the first investigation of BRO responses during a verbal fluency (VF) task, which is a complex, dynamic task state combining memory, visual perception, executive function, and language processing. Using publicly available EEG data from 22 healthy adults, we measured BRO responses over the left anterior frontal region corresponding to Broca’s area for language production, and the corresponding location on the right hemisphere. Results showed that although BRO responses are present across both tasks, there were no significant differences between the conditions for either the time-domain response amplitudes and latencies, or the time-frequency-domain spectral power features. Additionally, the time-domain peak amplitudes and latencies are also correlated at the individual level (p< 0.05), suggesting that the BRO response is consistent and robust at the individual level between resting and VF conditions. Together, these findings suggest that blink-related brainwaves can be detected under dynamic, complex task conditions like VF, and that despite its complexity and cognitive demand on the brain, the VF task did not significantly modulate time-domain or time-frequency-domain BRO responses. The findings of this study support the potential utility of BRO responses as a biomarker of cognition that can be reliably and consistently detected across a variety of task states.

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