NICA

Normative Independent Component Analysis (NICA) is the software thanks to which I carried out several studies starting from 2009. NICA performs group Blind Source Separation (gBSS), build gBSS databases, compares individuals to the databases and performs gBSS statistical tests for 2-group designs, both between subjects and within subjects. The originality of NICA is that it computes and tests not only source power, but also source (lagged) coherence.

This application features very fast gBSS computations, powerful statistical tests (permutation t-max tests) and convenient plots of the results. See the help files for details.

The rationale and methods used in this program are explained in all details in the following two papers:

Congedo M, John ER, De Ridder D, Prichep L (2010) Group Independent Component Analysis of Resting-State EEG in Large Normative Samples International. Journal of Psychophysiology 78, 89-99. {pdf}

Congedo M, John ER, De Ridder D, Prichep L, Isenhart B. (2010) On the “Dependence” of “Independent” Group EEG Sources; an EEG Study on Two Large Databases. Brain Topography, 23(2), 134-138. {pdf}

The BSS method used in these work is described in detail in this paper:

Congedo M, Gouy-Pailler C, Jutten C (2008) On the blind source separation of human electroencephalogram by approximate joint diagonalization of second order statistics. Clinical Neurophysiology 119, 2677-2686. {pdf}

This program as it is has been used in the following two papers:

Kopřivová J, Congedo M, Horáček J, Praško J, Raszka M, Brunovský M, Kohútová B, Höschl C (2011) EEG source analysis in obsessive–compulsive disorder. Clinical Neurophysiology 122(9), 1735-1743. {pdf}

White D, Congedo M, Ciorciari J, Silberstein R (2012) Brain oscillatory activity during spatial navigation: Theta and gamma activity link medial temporal and parietal regions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(3), 686-697. {pdf}