A new linearly constrained minimum variance beamformer for reconstructing EEG sparse sources

Brain source imaging based on EEG aims to reconstruct the neural activities producing the scalp potentials. This includes solving the forward and inverse problems. The aim of the inverse problem is to estimate the activity of the brain sources based on the measured data and leadfield matrix computed in the forward step. Spatial filtering, also known as beamforming, is an inverse method that reconstructs the time course of the source at a particular location by weighting and linearly combining the sensor data. In this paper, we considered a temporal assumption related to the time course of the source, namely sparsity, in the Linearly Constrained Minimum Variance (LCMV) beamformer. This assumption sounds reasonable since not all brain sources are active all the time such as epileptic spikes and also some experimental protocols such as electrical stimulations of a peripheral nerve can be sparse in time. Developing the sparse beamformer is done by incorporating L1-norm regularization of the beamformer output in the relevant cost function while obtaining the filter weights. We called this new beamformer SParse LCMV (SP-LCMV). We compared the performance of the SP-LCMV with that of LCMV for both superficial and deep sources with different amplitudes using synthetic EEG signals. Also, we compared them in localization and reconstruction of sources underlying electric median nerve stimulation. Results show that the proposed sparse beamformer can enhance reconstruction of sparse sources especially in the case of sources with high amplitude spikes.     

Utilizing sensor data to model students’ creativity in a digital environment

While creativity is essential for developing students’ broad expertise in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields, many students struggle with various aspects of being creative. Digital technologies have the unique opportunity to support the creative process by (1) recognizing elements of students’ creativity, such as when creativity is lacking (modeling step), and (2) providing tailored scaffolding based on that information (intervention step). However, to date little work exists on either of these aspects. Here, we focus on the modeling step. Specifically, we explore the utility of various sensing devices, including an eye tracker, a skin conductance bracelet, and an EEG sensor, for modeling creativity during an educational activity, namely geometry proof generation. We found reliable differences in sensor features characterizing low vs. high creativity students. We then applied machine learning to build classifiers that achieved good accuracy in distinguishing these two student groups, providing evidence that sensor features are valuable for modeling creativity.     

频带能量与样本熵在注意力脑电信号中的对比研究

脑电波是一种复杂的生物电信号,可反应出大脑内部的活动及注意力等精神状态。基于此,论文设计了注意力相关的脑电实验,并完成了受试者脑电数据的采集,对所采集的脑电数据分别从以下两种角度进行研究:从时频分析的角度,采用db4小波基对原始脑电信号进行7层小波包分解,提取了β波/θ波能量占比作为特征量;从非线性动力学的角度,提取脑电信号的样本熵作为特征,并分别对各受试者进行注意力的分级研究。通过对比分析,结果表明两者都能从一定程度上表征注意力水平的状况,但样本熵对于多级注意力的区分度更好。     

基于深度网络迁移学习的致痫区脑电识别* .txt

摘要：致痫区脑电识别能够为癫痫外科手术提供重要的参考价值。提出了一种基于深度网络迁移学习的致痫区脑电识别算法。首先利用连续小波变换（CWT）对脑电信号进行时频分析，获得脑电信号时频图；然后迁移学习AlexNet网络模型，调整网络结构使之适应于致痫区脑电识别，将模型第7层全连接层输出作为脑电信号时频图的特征表示，最后利用支持向量机（SVM）、BP神经网络、长短期记忆网络（LSTM）、基于稀疏表达分类算法（SRC）、线性判别分析（LDA）等分类算法进行特征分类。基于开源脑电数据集采用十折交叉验证的方法对算法进行了验证,比较6种分类器的效果，得到SVM算法的平均特异性为8881%，灵敏度为8807%，准确率为8844%，证明了该方法识别致痫区脑电信号的有效性。 .txt     

Multi-class grasping classifiers using EEG data and a common spatial pattern filter

This paper describes the classification of various human actions from brain activity. In particular, we focus on grasping movements and estimate grasping patterns from electroencephalogram (EEG) data. EEG data is converted to grasping features by using a common spatial pattern filter (CSP filter), and the features are subsequently classified into grasping categories by using the k-nearest neighbor method. We tested the pipeline of feature extraction and classification on the EEG dataset. The EEG data were acquired while participants grasped an object according to the Cutkosky’s grasping taxonomy, in which grasping movements are categorized into nine power-type grasping patterns and seven precision-type grasping patterns. The best classification rate for 9-class power-type grasping patterns was 48% and for 7-class precision-type grasping patterns was 40%.     

Cross-task emotion recognition using eeg measures: first step towards practical application

Electroencephalographic (EEG)-based emotion recognition has received increasing attention in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) recently, there however remains a number of challenges in building a generalized emotion recognition model, one of which includes the difficulty of an EEG-based emotion classifier trained on a specific task to handle other tasks. Little attention has been paid to this issue. The current study is to determine the feasibility of coping with this challenge using feature selection. 12 healthy volunteers were emotionally elicited when conducting picture induced and video induced tasks. Firstly, support vector machine (SVM) classifier was examined under within-task conditions (trained and tested on the same task) and cross-task conditions (trained on one task and tested on another task) for picture induced and video induced tasks. The within-task classification performed fairly well (classification accuracy: 51.6% for picture task and 94.4% for video task). Cross-task classification, however, deteriorated to low levels (around 44%). Trained and tested with the most robust feature subset selected by SVM-recursive feature elimination (RFE), the performance of cross-task classifier was significantly improved to above 68%. These results suggest that cross-task emotion recognition is feasible with proper methods and bring EEG-based emotion recognition models closer to being able to discriminate emotion states for any tasks.     

An integrated alcoholic index using tunable-Q wavelet transform based features extracted from EEG signals for diagnosis of alcoholism

Alcoholism affects the structure and functioning of brain. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals can depict the state of brain. The EEG signals are ensemble of various neuronal activity recorded from different scalp regions having different characteristics and very low magnitude in microvolts. These factors make human interpretation difficult and time consuming to analyze these signals. Moreover, these highly varying EEG signals are susceptible to inter/intra variability errors. So, a Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) can be used to identify the alcoholic and normal subjects accurately. However, these EEG signals exhibit nonlinear and non-stationary properties. Therefore, it needs much effort in deciphering the diagnostic evidence from them using linear time and frequency-domain methods. The nonlinear parameters together with time-frequency/scale domain methods can help to detect tiny changes in these signals. The correntropy is nonlinear indicator which characterizes the dynamic behavior of EEG signals in time-scale domain. In this paper, we present a new way for diagnosis of alcoholism using Tunable-Q Wavelet Transform (TQWT) based features derived from EEG signals. The feature extraction is performed using TQWT based decomposition and extracted Centered Correntropy (CC) from the forth decomposed detail sub-band. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used for feature reduction followed by Least Squares-Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) for classifying normal and alcoholic EEG signals. In order to make sure reliable classification performance, 10-fold cross-validation scheme is adopted. Our proposed system is able to diagnose the alcoholic and normal EEG signals, with an average accuracy of 97.02%, sensitivity of 96.53%, specificity of 97.50% and Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.9494 for Q-factor (Q) varying between 3 and 8 using Radial Basis Function (RBF) kernel function. Also, we have established a novel Alcoholism Risk Index (ARI) using three clinically significant features to discriminate the given classes by means of a single number. This system can be used for automated diagnosis and monitoring of alcoholic subjects to evaluate the effect of treatment.     

基于时频域的卷积神经网络运动想象脑电信号识别方法

针对目前运动想象脑电（EEG）信号识别率较低的问题，考虑到脑电信号蕴含着丰富的时频信息，提出一种基于时频域的卷积神经网络（CNN）运动想象脑电信号识别方法。首先，利用短时傅里叶变换（STFT）对脑电信号的相关频带进行预处理，并将多个电极的时频图组合构造出一种二维时频图；然后，针对二维时频图的时频特性，通过一维卷积的方法设计了一种新颖的CNN结构；最后，通过支持向量机（SVM）对CNN提取的特征进行分类。基于BCI数据集的实验结果表明，所提方法的平均识别率为86.5%，优于其他传统运动想象脑电信号识别方法；同时将该方法应用在智能轮椅上，验证了其有效性。     

Detection of motor imagery EEG signals employing Naïve Bayes based learning process

The objective of this study is to develop a reliable and robust analysis system that can automatically detect motor imagery (MI) based electroencephalogram (EEG) signals for the development of brain–computer interface (BCI) systems. The detection of MI tasks provides an important basis for designing a communication way between brain and computer in creating devices for people with motor disabilities. This paper presents a synthesis approach based on optimum allocation system and Naive Bayes (NB) algorithm for detecting mental states based on EEG signals. In this study, an optimal allocation (OA) is introduced to discover the most effective representatives with minimal variability from a large number of MI based EEG data and the NB classifier is employed on the extracted features for discriminating the MI signals. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by analyzing the results and its success on two public benchmark datasets. The results indicate that the proposed approach outperforms the most recently reported five methods and achieves 0.64–20.90% improvement on average accuracy. The performances of this proposed approach implies that it can be reliably used to detect EEG based MI activity and can be a promising avenue for EEG based BCI applications.     

Biogeography based hybrid scheme for automatic detection of epileptic seizures from EEG signatures

Biogeography Based Optimization (BBO) algorithm is one of the nature-inspired optimization methods, based on the study of geographical distribution of species on earth. The present research work is based upon decomposition of human electroencephalograms (EEG) signal by Wavelet Packet Transform, computation of a complete feature set using statistical and non-statistical properties followed by optimal selection of features by BBO; the optimality criterion being classification rate. The stopping criterion for BBO is set to 100% correct classification rate. The proposed algorithm is novel in terms of TWSVM computing the Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) values for BBO, perfect classification rate, low computation time, and feature selection mechanism. The proposed scheme outperforms several previous results reported in literature in that it gives a feature subset which gives 100% classification accuracy for different classification instances.