EEG microstate transition cost correlates with task demands

by Giacomo Barzon, Ettore Ambrosini, Antonino Vallesi, Samir Suweis

The ability to solve complex tasks relies on the adaptive changes occurring in the spatio-temporal organization of brain activity under different conditions. Altered flexibility in these dynamics can lead to impaired cognitive performance, manifesting for instance as difficulties in attention regulation, distraction inhibition, and behavioral adaptation. Such impairments result in decreased efficiency and increased effort in accomplishing goal-directed tasks. Therefore, developing quantitative measures that can directly assess the effort involved in these transitions using neural data is of paramount importance. In this study, we propose a framework to associate cognitive effort during the performance of tasks with electroencephalography (EEG) activation patterns. The methodology relies on the identification of discrete dynamical states (EEG microstates) and optimal transport theory. To validate the effectiveness of this framework, we apply it to a dataset collected during a spatial version of the Stroop task, a cognitive test in which participants respond to one aspect of a stimulus while ignoring another, often conflicting, aspect. The Stroop task is a cognitive test where participants must respond to one aspect of a stimulus while ignoring another, often conflicting, aspect. Our findings reveal an increased cost linked to cognitive effort, thus confirming the framework’s effectiveness in capturing and quantifying cognitive transitions. By utilizing a fully data-driven method, this research opens up fresh perspectives for physiologically describing cognitive effort within the brain.