Ensemble Deep Neural Network for Automatic Classification of EEG Independent Components

Objective: Independent component analysis (ICA) is commonly used to remove noisy artifacts from multi-channel scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. ICA decomposes EEG into different independent components (ICs) and then, experts remove the noisy ones. This process is highly time-consuming and experts are not always available. To surpass this drawback, research is going on to develop models to automatically conduct IC classification. Current state-of-the-art models use power spectrum densities (PSDs) and topoplots to classify ICs. The performance of these methods may be limited by disregarding the IC time-series that would contribute to fully simulate the visual inspection performed by experts. Methods: We present a novel ensemble deep neural network that combines time-series, PSDs, and topoplots to classify ICs. Moreover, we study the ability to use our model in transfer learning approaches. Results: Experimental results showed that using time-series improves IC classification. Results also indicated that transfer learning obtained higher performance than simply training a new model from scratch. Conclusion: Researchers should develop IC classifiers using the three sources of information. Moreover, transfer learning approaches should be considered when producing new deep learning models. Significance: This work improves IC classification, enhancing the automatic removal of EEG artifacts. Additionally, since labelled ICs are generally not publicly available, the possibility of using our model in transfer learning studies may motivate other researchers to develop their own classifiers.