Assessment of effective connectivity among cortical regions based on a neural mass model

Assessment of brain connectivity among different brain areas during cognitive or motor tasks is a crucial problem in neuroscience today. Aim of this work is to use a neural mass model to assess the effect of various connectivity patterns in the power spectral density (PSD) of cortical EEG, and investigate the possibility to derive connectivity circuits from real EEG data. To this end, a model of an individual region of interest (ROI) has been built as the parallel arrangement of three populations, each described as in [1]. The present study suggests that the model can be used as a simulation tool, able to produce reliable intracortical EEG signals. Moreover, it can be used to look for simple connectivity circuits, able to explain the main features of observed cortical PSD. These results may open new prospective in the use of neurophysiological models, instead of empirical models, to assess effective connectivity from neuroimaging information. © 2006 IEEE.