Analysis of generic coupling between EEG activity and P(ET)CO(2) in free breathing and breath-hold tasks using Maximal Information Coefficient (MIC)

Brain activations related to the control of breathing are not completely known. The respiratory system is a non-linear system. However, the relationship between neural and respiratory dynamics is usually estimated through linear correlation measures, completely neglecting possible underlying nonlinear interactions. This study evaluate the linear and nonlinear coupling between electroencephalographic (EEG) signal and variations in carbon dioxide (CO(2)) signal related to different breathing task. During a free breathing and a voluntary breath hold tasks, the coupling between EEG power in nine different brain regions in delta (1–3 Hz) and alpha (8–13 Hz) bands and end-tidal CO(2) (P(ET) CO(2)) was evaluated. Specifically, the generic associations (i.e. linear and nonlinear correlations) and a “pure” nonlinear correlations were evaluated using the maximum information coefficient (MIC) and MIC-ρ(2) between the two signals, respectively (where ρ(2) represents the Pearson’s correlation coefficient). Our results show that in delta band, MIC indexes discriminate the two tasks in several regions, while in alpha band the same behaviour is observed for MIC-ρ(2), suggesting a generic coupling between delta EEG power and P(ET)CO(2) and a pure nonlinear interaction between alpha EEG power and P(ET)CO(2). Moreover, higher indexes values were found for breath hold task respect to free breathing.