Over the last decade, EEG resting-state microstate analysis has evolved from a niche existence to a widely used and well-accepted methodology. The rapidly increasing body of empirical findings started to yield overarching patterns of associations of biological and psychological states and traits with specific microstate classes. However, currently, this cross-referencing among apparently similar microstate classes of different studies is typically done by "eyeballing" of printed template maps by the individual authors, lacking a systematic procedure. To improve the reliability and validity of future findings, we present a tool to systematically collect the actual data of template maps from as many published studies as possible and present them in their entirety as a matrix of spatial similarity. The tool also allows importing novel template maps and systematically extracting the findings associated with specific microstate maps from ongoing or published studies. The tool also allows importing novel template maps and systematically extracting the findings associated with specific microstate maps in the literature. The analysis of 40 included sets of template maps indicated that: (i) there is a high degree of similarity of template maps across studies, (ii) similar template maps were associated with converging empirical findings, and (iii) representative meta-microstates can be extracted from the individual studies. We hope that this tool will be useful in coming to a more comprehensive, objective, and overarching representation of microstate findings.

Center for MRI Research Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies Peking University Beijing 100871 China

Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience Aarhus University Aarhus Denmark

Children's Hospital Los Angeles The Saban Research Institute Los Angeles CA 90027 USA

CINETic Center National University of Theatre and Film 1 L Caragiale Bucharest Bucharest Romania

Department of Basic Neurosciences University of Geneva Campus Biotech 9 Chemin des Mines Geneva 1202 Switzerland

Department of Clinical Neurophysiology Karolinska University Hospital Stockholm Sweden

Department of Ergonomics Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors Ardeystr 67 Dortmund 44139 Germany

Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society Center for Alzheimer Research Division of Clinical Geriatrics Karolinska Institutet Huddinge Sweden

Department of Neurology Istanbul Eyupsultan Public Hospital Istanbul Turkey

Department of Neurosciences Imaging and Clinical Sciences Behavioral Imaging and Neural Dynamics Center Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies Gabriele d'Annunzio University Chieti 66100 Italy

Department of Nuclear Medicine Geneva University Hospital Geneva Switzerland

Department of Psychiatry Faculty of Medicine University Hospital Brno Masaryk University Brno Czechia

Department of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School Boston MA USA

Department of Psychology Laboratory for Biological Psychology Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg Breisgau Germany

Department of Psychology University of Alberta Edmonton AB T6G 2E9 Canada

Department of Psychology University of Fribourg Fribourg Switzerland

Department of Psychology University of Miami Coral Gables FL USA

Departments of Systems Design Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Waterloo 200 University Avenue W Waterloo ON N2L 3G1 Canada

Division of Psychology Department of Life Sciences College of Health Medicine and Life Sciences and Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience Brunel University London Kingston Lane Uxbridge UB8 3PH UK

Faculty of Educational Sciences Department of Psychology University Stefan cel Mare of Suceava Suceava Romania

Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences Department of Cognitive Sciences University of Bucharest Bucharest Romania

Human Neuron Lab Faculty of Medicine Department of Clinical Neurosciences University of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

Life Sciences Centre Institute of Biosciences Vilnius University Vilnius Lithuania

McLean Hospital Belmont MA USA

Program of Neuroscience Ph D Graduate School of Health Sciences Istanbul Medipol University Istanbul Turkey

School of Biomedical Engineering Medical School Shenzhen University Shenzhen China

Translational Research Center University Hospital of Psychiatry University of Bern Bern Switzerland

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