Power Spectral Study of EEG Signal from the Frontal Brain Area of Autistic Children

Autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represents complex developmental disabilities characterized by deficits in social communications, interactions, and cognitive development. The prevalence of ASD shows a growing trend both in developed and developing countries. ASD occurs due to improper brain development in early life and individuals characterized as ASD possesses abnormal brain activity that is commonly studied using electroencephalography (EEG). Our present work analyzes the EEG of ASD children from the frontal lobe of the brain that is responsible for social, emotion, and cognitive functions, which was compared with the EEG signals of normal healthy children. The power spectra (PS) of EEG signal were obtained using fast Fourier transformation (FFT) algorithm in MATLAB. EEG recording was performed on all the ten selected children (five ASD and five normal) using two electrodes placed on F3 and F4. The artifact-free EEG signals of 10 min duration were extracted and used for obtaining PS. The PS revealed high-intensity power peak at frequency 50 Hz, for all healthy children; but in case of ASD participants, there existed two peaks at 100 and 50 Hz. The intensity of 50 Hz peak in ASD cases was not as intense as those of normal children but the 100 Hz peak was highly intense. The existence of high-intensity peaks in ASD can be attributed to the imbalance in high-frequency EEG rhythm that is responsible for perpetual and cognitive processing in humans.