Successful reproduction of a large EEG study across software packages

Abstract

As an active field of research and with the development of state-of-the-art algorithms to analyze EEG datasets, the parametrization of Electroencephalography (EEG) analysis workflows has become increasingly flexible and complex, with a great variety of methodological options and tools to be selected at each step. This high analytical flexibility can be problematic as it can yield to variability in research outcomes. Therefore, growing attention has been recently paid to understand the potential impact of different methodological decisions on the reproducibility of results. In this paper, we aim to examine how sensitive the results of EEG analyses are to variations in preprocessing with different software tools. We reanalyzed the shared EEG data (N = 500) from (Williams et al., 2021) using three of the most commonly used open-source Matlab-based EEG software tools: EEGLAB, Brainstorm and FieldTrip. After reproducing the same original preprocessing workflow in each software, the resulting event-related potentials (ERPs) were qualitatively and quantitatively compared in order to examine the degree of consistency/discrepancy between software packages. Our findings show a good degree of convergence in terms of the general profile of ERP waveforms, peak latencies and effect size estimates related to specific signal features. However, considerable variability was also observed in the magnitude of the absolute voltage observed with each software package as reflected by the similarity values and observed statistical differences at particular channels and time instants. In conclusion, we believe that this study provides valuable clues to better understand the impact of the software tool on the analysis of EEG results.