A Wearable EEG Band Based on Spray-Coated Textile Bioelectrodes

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive electrophysiological measurement that plays a pivotal role in diagnosing neurological disorders. Apart from the clinical use, EEG gained progressive attention in the assessment and recognition of emotional states, the development of non-invasive human-machine interfaces, and for biofeedback. In such contexts, the development of innovative bioelectrodes, able to improve comfort and unobtrusiveness, fabricated by means of scalable, large-area fabrication techniques, is an important research goal. Herein, we present a novel approach for the fabrication of EEG textile bioelectrodes, which are based on large-area, spray coated poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate conductive polymer, mixed with an ionic additive. The bioelectrodes exhibit comparable performance with a commercial wearable device for EEG signal acquisition (i.e., the Muse™ headset), when analyzing the EEG power spectral density during both eyes closed and eyes open conditions. These results suggest that the proposed textile electrodes could be an efficient alternative to state-of-the-art EEG electrodes, particularly in applications where unobtrusive and comfortable sensing is required.