Data for: ERP markers of visual and auditory imagery: a ‘mind reading’ approach for BCI systems

Grand-average ERP waveforms recorded during mental imagery and perception of visual and auditory stimuli in a large group of healthy right-handed participants. Visual and auditory stimuli representing biologically relevant categories (e.g., faces, animals, voices…) were presented to 30 participants during a perceptual and an imagery condition, to collect the corresponding neural electrical signals. Unprecedented electro-physiological markers of imagery (in absence of sensory stimulation) were identified showing a specific response at given scalp sites and latency during imagination of infants (centroparietal positivity, CPP and late CPP), human faces (anterior negativity, AN), animals (anterior positivity, AP), music (P300), speech (N400), vocalizations (P2-like) and sensory (visual vs. auditory) modality (PN300).
These ERP markers might be precious tools for BCI systems (pattern recognition, classification or A.I. algorithms) applied to patients affected by consciousness disorders (e.g., in a vegetative or comatose state) or locked-in-patients (e.g. spinal or SLA patients).