CNN-based approaches for cross-subject classification in motor imagery: From the state-of-the-art to DynamicNet

A Zancanaro, G Cisotto, JR Paulo… - … IEEE conference on …, 2021 - ieeexplore.ieee.org
2021 IEEE conference on computational intelligence in …, 2021ieeexplore.ieee.org
The accurate detection of motor imagery (MI) from electroencephalography (EEG) is a
fundamental, as well as challenging, task to provide reliable control of robotic devices to
support people suffering from neuro-motor impairments, eg, in brain-computer interface
(BCI) applications. Recently, deep learning approaches have been able to extract subject-
independent features from EEG, to cope with its poor SNR and high intra-subject and cross-
subject variability. In this paper, we first present a review of the most recent studies using …
The accurate detection of motor imagery (MI) from electroencephalography (EEG) is a fundamental, as well as challenging, task to provide reliable control of robotic devices to support people suffering from neuro-motor impairments, e.g., in brain-computer interface (BCI) applications. Recently, deep learning approaches have been able to extract subject-independent features from EEG, to cope with its poor SNR and high intra-subject and cross-subject variability. In this paper, we first present a review of the most recent studies using deep learning for MI classification, with particular attention to their cross-subject performance. Second, we propose DynamicNet, a Python-based tool for quick and flexible implementations of deep learning models based on convolutional neural networks. We showcase the potentiality of DynamicNet by implementing EEGNet, a well-established architecture for effective EEG classification. Finally, we compare its performance with the filter bank common spatial pattern (FBCSP) in a 4-class MI task (data from a public dataset). To infer cross-subject classification performance, we applied three different cross-validation schemes. From our results, we show that EEGNet implemented with DynamicNet outperforms FBCSP by about 25 %, with a statistically significant difference when cross-subject validation schemes are applied. We conclude that deep learning approaches might be particularly helpful to provide higher cross-subject classification performance in multiclass MI classification scenarios. In the future, it is expected to improve DynamicNet to implement new architectures to further investigate cross-subject classification of MI tasks in real-world scenarios.
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