dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaExperimental evidence for a power law in electroencephalographic $\alpha$-wave dynamics
| Authors | Y. Georgelin, L. Poupard, R. Sartene, J. C. Wallet |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/9803048 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9803048 |
| DOI | 10.1007/s100510051008 |
Abstract
We perform an experimental study of the time behavior of the $\alpha$-wave events occuring in human electroencephalographic signals. We find that the fraction of the time spent in an $\alpha$-burst of time size $\tau$ exhibits a scaling behavior as a function of $\tau$. The corresponding exponent is equal to 1.75$\pm$0.13. We therefore point out the existence of a new power law appearing in physiology. Furhtermore, we show that our experimental result may have a possible explanation within a class of Self-Organized Critical (SOC) models recently proposed by Boettcher and Paczuski. In particular, one of these models, when properly re-interpreted, seems to be consistent both with our result and a commonly accepted physiological description of the possible origin of $\alpha$-wave events.
{
"annotation_id": "5f01da60-6a7d-4184-9033-1de1760def06",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:21.756000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:21.756000Z",
"file_hash": "44e65389b1cafc18f492b987dd80778f891d1381656b338988c01f19427fc451",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "We perform an experimental study of the time behavior of the $\\alpha$-wave\nevents occuring in human electroencephalographic signals. We find that the\nfraction of the time spent in an $\\alpha$-burst of time size $\\tau$ exhibits a\nscaling behavior as a function of $\\tau$. The corresponding exponent is equal\nto 1.75$\\pm$0.13. We therefore point out the existence of a new power law\nappearing in physiology. Furhtermore, we show that our experimental result may\nhave a possible explanation within a class of Self-Organized Critical (SOC)\nmodels recently proposed by Boettcher and Paczuski. In particular, one of these\nmodels, when properly re-interpreted, seems to be consistent both with our\nresult and a commonly accepted physiological description of the possible origin\nof $\\alpha$-wave events.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/9803048",
"authors": [
"Y. Georgelin",
"L. Poupard",
"R. Sartene",
"J. C. Wallet"
],
"categories": [
"physics.bio-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1007/s100510051008",
"title": "Experimental evidence for a power law in electroencephalographic $\\alpha$-wave dynamics",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9803048"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "74a1cae3-0738-4844-b2a1-83b99b9c6834",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}