ArticleJournal of neuroscience methods2025
Proper reference selection and re-referencing to mitigate bias in single pulse electrical stimulation data.
Article in Journal of neuroscience methods, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Electrophysiological features of signals recorded from white matter.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Stimulation-evoked orbitofrontal activity as a biomarker for DBS personalization in depression.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- A Systematic Characterization of Causal Interactions Between Human Visual Areas.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Structural and effective brain connectivity in focal epilepsy.Neuroimage. Reports · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
- Update of
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSingle pulse electrical stimulation experiments produce brain stimulation evoked potentials used to infer brain connectivity. The choice of recording reference for intracranial electrodes remains non-standardized and can significantly impact data interpretation. When the reference electrode is affected by stimulation or evoked brain activity, it can contaminate the brain stimulation evoked potentials recorded at all other electrodes and influence interpretation of findings. NEW
methodThis specific issue is highlighted in intracranial EEG datasets from two subjects recorded at separate institutions. We present several intuitive metrics to detect the presence of reference contamination, based on artificial similarity between all channels. We also offer practical guidance on mitigating contamination, by switching to a more neutral reference electrode, or by post hoc re-referencing, per stimulation site, to an adjusted common average that is optimized for bias and noise.
resultsEither switching the reference electrode or re-referencing to an adjusted common average effectively mitigated the reference contamination issue. This was evidenced by metrics that indicated increased variability in the latencies and response durations of brain stimulation evoked potentials across the brain, and by increased similarity between experimental runs after re-referencing.
conclusionOverall, this study demonstrates the necessity of clear quality checks and preprocessing steps to ensure accurate interpretation of single pulse electrical stimulation data, and it provides a set of statistics and tools to achieve this.
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