Labor

Our electrophysiology lab features a control room for experimenters and an experimental room where study participants are tested. Additionaly, the lab provides a room for offline data processing and analysis.

 

Data recording

Electrophysiological data is recorded with an ActiveTwo amplifier from BioSemi (Amsterdam, NL) with 64 EEG and 8 additional monopolar channels (e.g. for EKG, EOG, EMG), all via active electrodes. The ActiveTwo system uses an active Common Mode Sensor and a Driven Right Leg electrode for effective noise reduction. It also features exosomatic measurement of electrodermal activity. EEG electrodes are plugged into standardized electrode caps (Electro-Cap International; Eaton, OH, USA) according to the extended 10-20 system.

The experimental room is equipped with a 24“ LCD monitor for visual stimulus presentation, two room speakers for auditory stimulus presentation, keyboard and button box for response logging, an experimenter-participant intercom and a video camera for participants’ safety. We use a DS7A current stimulator (Digitimer; Hertfordshire, UK) for application of electrocutaneous stimuli.

The control room features two computers for experimental control and physiological recording, respectively. Presentation (Neurobehavioral Systems; Berkely, CA, USA) is used for stimulus presentation and response logging. Electrophysiological signals are recorded via BioSemi and custom-made ActiView software, implemented in LabVIEW (National Instruments; Austin TX, USA).

 

Data processing

Physiological data is processed in BrainVision Analyzer 2 (Brain Products; Gilching, D), EEGLAB (Delorme & Makeig, 2004), LORETA (Pascual-Marqui et al., 1994) and MATLAB (MathWorks; Natick, MA, USA). Moreover, we use SPM8 (Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London, UK; 2009) for fMRI analyses.