Individualising EEG frequency bands for sleep deprivation studies

A method for determining individualised frequency bands from electroencephalographic (EEG) power spectral density (PSD) plots is presented. EEG was collected during the performance of a computerised multitask test from 21 healthy male subjects, of which an experimental group of 14 subjects underwent sleep deprivation and 7 subjects formed the control group. EEG PSD plots were compared between the groups and were used to determine individual theta, alpha and beta bands for the subjects by studying the points of intersection between the individual subjects' normalised spectra and the normalised average spectrum of the control group. The results show that the frontal and occipital locations are best suited for the determination of individualised frequency bands. The proposed method can be used to enhance EEG spectral analysis of task-induced cognitive effort during sleep deprivation.