Parametric analysis of oscillatory activity as measured with EEG/MEG

Abstract We assess the suitability of conventional parametric statistics for analyzing oscillatory activity, as measured with electroencephalography/magnetoencephalography (EEG/MEG). The approach we consider is based on narrow‐band power time–frequency decompositions of single‐trial data. The ensuing power measures have a χ 2 ‐distribution. The use of the general linear model (GLM) under normal error assumptions is, therefore, difficult to motivate for these data. This is unfortunate because the GLM plays a central role in classical inference and is the standard estimation and inference framework for neuroimaging data. The key contribution of this work is to show that, in many circumstances, one can appeal to the central limit theorem and assume normality for generative models of power. If this is not appropriate, one can transform the data to render the error terms approximately normal. These considerations allow one to analyze induced and evoked oscillations using standard frameworks like statistical parametric mapping. We establish the validity of parametric tests using synthetic and real data and compare its performance to established nonparametric procedures. Hum Brain Mapp, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.