Decoding movement frequencies and limbs based on steady-state movement-related rhythms from noninvasive EEG

Abstract Objective. Decoding different types of movements noninvasively from electroencephalography (EEG) is an essential topic in neural engineering, especially in brain–computer interface. Although the widely used sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) is efficient in limb decoding, it lacks efficacy in decoding movement frequencies. Accumulating evidence supports the notion that the movement frequency is encoded in the steady-state movement-related rhythm (SSMRR). Our study has two primary objectives: firstly, to investigate the spatial–spectral representation of SSMRR in EEG during voluntary movements; secondly, to assess whether movement frequencies and limbs can be effectively decoded based on SSMRR. Approach. To comprehensively examine the representation of SSMRR, we investigated the frequency characteristics and spatial patterns associated with various rhythmic finger movements. Coherence analysis was performed between the sensor or source domain EEG and finger movements recorded by data gloves. A fusion model based on spectral SNR features and filter-bank common spatial pattern features was utilized to decode movement frequencies and limbs. Main results. At the group-level, sensor domain, and source domain coherence maps demonstrated that the accurate movement frequency ( f 0 ) and its first harmonic ( f 1 ) were encoded in the contralateral motor cortex. For the four-class classification, including two movement frequencies for both hands, the decoding accuracies for externally paced and internally paced movements were 73.14 ± 15.86% and 66.30 ± 17.26% (averaged across ten subjects, chance levels at 31.05% and 30.96%). Notably, the average results of five subjects with the highest decoding accuracies reached 87.21 ± 7.44% and 80.44 ± 7.99%. Significance. Our results verified the EEG representation of SSMRR and proved that the movement frequency and limb could be effectively decoded based on spatial–spectral features extracted from SSMRR. We suggest that SSMRR can serve as a complement to SMR to expand the range of decodable movement types and the approaches of limb decoding.