A novel dry-contact electrode for measuring electroencephalography signals

Electroencephalography (EEG) is an important method for investigating and analyzing neuro electrophysiological properties because of its superior temporal resolution. Conventional wet electrodes are widely used in recording EEG signals, which are, however, limited by long-time skin preparation and the usage of a wet gel. To supplement the shortcomings of wet electrodes, we designed a novel dry-contact EEG electrode and a multichannel EEG cap. A platinum (Pt) nano porous layer was deposited on the head of the dry electrode to decrease the contact resistance and enhance the conductivity. The new electrodes were evaluated with electrophysiological tests and were compared with the standard wet electrodes. To evaluate the feasibility and applicability of our dry electrode, EEG measurements and event-related potential (ERP) tests were conducted using the dry electrode. For the resting-state EEG measurement, there were no significant differences between the dry electrode and the standard wet electrodes, with the relative errors of the EEG signals ranging from 0.8179 to 0.9677. For the ERP test, obvious P300 waves were acquired by dry electrodes, the root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) results of the dry electrodes and wet electrodes in the P300 waves were less than 1 mu V and the correlations were more than 0.99. In conclusion, our newly developed dry EEG electrodes and multichannel cap were reliable in measuring EEG signals with a quick and convenient preparation and are promising for clinical applications. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.