Parametric vs. non-parametric statistics of low resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA)

This study compared the relative statistical sensitivity of non-parametric and parametric statistics of 3-dimensional current sources as estimated by the EEG inverse solution Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (LORETA). One would expect approximately 5% false positives (classification of a normal as abnormal) at the P<.025 level of probability (two tailed test) and approximately 1% false positives at the P<.005 level. EEG digital samples (2 second intervals sampled 128 Hz, 1 to 2 minutes eyes closed) from 43 normal adult subjects were imported into the Key Institute's LORETA program. We then used the Key Institute's cross-spectrum and the Key Institute's LORETA output files (*.Ior) as the 2,394 gray matter pixel representation of 3-dimensional currents at different frequencies. The mean and standard deviation *.Ior files were computed for each of the 2,394 gray matter pixels for each of the 43 subjects. Tests of Gaussianity and different transforms were computed in order to best approximate a normal distribution for each frequency and gray matter pixel. The relative sensitivity of parametric vs. non-parametric statistics were compared using a "leave-one-out" cross validation method in which individual normal subjects were withdrawn and then statistically classified as being either normal or abnormal based on the remaining subjects. Log(10) transforms approximated Gaussian distribution in the range of 95% to 99% accuracy. Parametric Z score tests at P<.05 cross-validation demonstrated an average misclassification rate of approximately 4.25%, and range over the 2,394 gray matter pixels was 27.66% to 0.11%. At P<.01 parametric Z score cross-validation false positives were 0.26% and ranged from 6.65% to 0% false positives. The non-parametric Key Institute's t-max statistic at P<.05 had an average misclassification error rate of 7.64% and ranged from 43.37% to 0.04% false positives. The non-parametric t-max at P<.01 had an average misclassification rate of 6.67% and ranged from 41.34% to 0% false positives of the 2,394 gray matter pixels for any cross-validated normal subject. In conclusion, adequate approximation to Gaussian distribution and high cross-validation can be achieved by the Key Institute's LORETA programs by using a log(10) transform and parametric statistics, and parametric normative comparisons had lower false positive rates than the non-parametric tests.