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Objective . In the field of motor imagery (MI) electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain-computer interfaces, deep transfer learning (TL) has proven to be an effective tool for solving the problem of limited availability in subject-specific data for the training of robust deep learning (DL) models. Although considerable progress has been made in the cross-subject/session and cross-device scenarios, the more challenging problem of cross-task deep TL remains largely unexplored. Approach . We propose a novel explainable cross-task adaptive TL method for MI EEG decoding. Firstly, similarity analysis and data alignment are performed for EEG data of motor execution (ME) and MI tasks. Afterwards, the MI EEG decoding model is obtained via pre-training with extensive ME EEG data and fine-tuning with partial MI EEG data. Finally, expected gradient-based post-hoc explainability analysis is conducted for the visualization of important temporal-spatial features. Main results . Extensive experiments are conducted on one large ME EEG High-Gamma dataset and two large MI EEG datasets (openBMI and GIST). The best average classification accuracy of our method reaches 80.00% and 72.73% for OpenBMI and GIST respectively, which outperforms several state-of-the-art algorithms. In addition, the results of the explainability analysis further validate the correlation between ME and MI EEG data and the effectiveness of ME/MI cross-task adaptation. Significance . This paper confirms that the decoding of MI EEG can be well facilitated by pre-existing ME EEG data, which largely relaxes the constraint of training samples for MI EEG decoding and is important in a practical sense., (© 2023 IOP Publishing Ltd.)

Affective brain computer interface (ABCI) enables machines to perceive, understand, express and respond to people's emotions. Therefore, it is expected to play an important role in emotional care and mental disorder detection. EEG signals are most frequently adopted as the physiology measurement in ABCI applications. Eye blinking and movements introduce lots of artifacts into raw EEG data, which seriously affect the quality of EEG signal and the subsequent emotional EEG feature engineering and recognition. In this paper, we propose a fully automatic and unsupervised ocular artifact identification and removal algorithm named automated canonical correlation analysis (CCA)-multi-channel wiener filter (MWF) (ACCAMWF). Firstly, spatial distribution entropy (SDE) and spectral entropy (SE) are computed to automatically annotate artifact segments. Then, CCA algorithm is used to extract neural signal from artifact contaminated data to further supplement the clean EEG data. Finally, MWF is trained to remove ocular artifacts from multiple channel EEG data adaptively. Extensive experiments have been carried out on semi-simulated EEG/EOG dataset and real eye blinking-contaminated EEG dataset to verify the effectiveness of our method when compared to two state-of-the-art algorithms. The results clearly demonstrate that ACCAMWF is a promising solution for removing EOG artifacts from emotional EEG data.

Vibration stimulation has been shown to have the potential to improve the activation pattern of unilateral motor imagery (MI) and to promote motor recovery. However, in the widely used left and right hand MI brain-computer interface (BCI) paradigm, the vibration stimuli cannot be directly applied to the imaginary side due to the spontaneity of imagery. In this study, we proposed a method of phase-dependent closed-loop vibration stimulation to be applied on both hands, and explored the effects of different vibration stimuli on the left and right hand MI-BCI. Eighteen healthy subjects were recruited and asked to perform, in sequence, MI tasks under three different conditions of vibratory feedback, which were no vibration stimulus (MI), phase-dependent closed-loop vibration stimulus (PDS), and continuous vibration stimulus (CS). Then the performance of the left and right hand MI-BCI and the patterns of brain oscillation were compared and analyzed under these different stimulation conditions. The results showed that vibration stimulation effectively boosted the activation of the sensorimotor cortex and enhanced the functional connectivity among sensorimotor-related brain regions during MI. The closed-loop stimulation evoked stronger event-related desynchronization patterns on the contralateral side of the imagined hand compared to continuous stimulation. There was a more obvious distinction between left hand task and right hand task. In addition, phase-dependent closed-loop vibration stimulation increased classification accuracy by approximately 7% (paired t-test, p=0.004, n=18) compared to MI alone, while continuous vibration stimulation only increased it by 4% (paired t-test, p=0.067, n=18). This result further demonstrated the effectiveness of the phase-dependent closed-loop vibration stimulation method in improving the overall performance of the MI paradigm and is expected to be further applied in areas such as stroke rehabilitation in the future.

EEG pattern recognition is an important part of motor imagery- (MI-) based brain computer interface (BCI) system. Traditional EEG pattern recognition algorithm usually includes two steps, namely, feature extraction and feature classification. In feature extraction, common spatial pattern (CSP) is one of the most frequently used algorithms. However, in order to extract the optimal CSP features, prior knowledge and complex parameter adjustment are often required. Convolutional neural network (CNN) is one of the most popular deep learning models at present. Within CNN, feature learning and pattern classification are carried out simultaneously during the procedure of iterative updating of network parameters; thus, it can remove the complicated manual feature engineering. In this paper, we propose a novel deep learning methodology which can be used for spatial-frequency feature learning and classification of motor imagery EEG. Specifically, a multilayer CNN model is designed according to the spatial-frequency characteristics of MI EEG signals. An experimental study is carried out on two MI EEG datasets (BCI competition III dataset IVa and a self-collected right index finger MI dataset) to validate the effectiveness of our algorithm in comparison with several closely related competing methods. Superior classification performance indicates that our proposed method is a promising pattern recognition algorithm for MI-based BCI system., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Minmin Miao et al.)

The motor imagery (MI) paradigm has been wildly used in brain-computer interface (BCI), but the difficulties in performing imagery tasks limit its application. Mechanical vibration stimulus has been increasingly used to enhance the MI performance, but its improvement consistence is still under debate. To develop more effective vibration stimulus methods for consistently enhancing MI, this study proposes an EEG phase-dependent closed-loop mechanical vibration stimulation method. The subject's index finger of the non-dominant hand was given 4 different vibration stimulation conditions (i.e., continuous open-loop vibration stimulus, two different phase-dependent closed-loop vibration stimuli and no stimulus) when performing two tasks of imagining movement and rest of the index finger from his/her dominant hand. We compared MI performance and brain oscillatory patterns under different conditions to verify the effectiveness of this method. The subjects performed 80 trials of each type in a random order, and the average phase-lock value of closed-loop stimulus conditions was 0.71. It was found that the closed-loop vibration stimulus applied in the falling phase helped the subjects to produce stronger event-related desynchronization (ERD) and sustain longer. Moreover, the classification accuracy was improved by about 9% compared with MI without any vibration stimulation (p = 0.012, paired t -test). This method helps to modulate the mu rhythm and make subjects more concentrated on the imagery and without negative enhancement during rest tasks, ultimately improves MI-based BCI performance. Participants reported that the tactile fatigue under closed-loop stimulation conditions was significantly less than continuous stimulation. This novel method is an improvement to the traditional vibration stimulation enhancement research and helps to make stimulation more precise and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motor imagery (MI) tasks evoke event-related desynchronization (ERD) and synchronization (ERS); the ERD-/ERS-related features appearing at specific channels are frequency and time localized. Therefore, optimal channels, frequency band and time interval are of great significance for MI electroencephalography feature extraction. In this paper, channel selection method based on linear discriminant criteria is used to automatically select the channels with high discriminative powers. In addition, the concept of artificial bee colony algorithm is first introduced to find the global optimal combination of frequency band and time interval simultaneously without prior knowledge for common spatial pattern features extraction and classification. Experimental results demonstrate that this scheme can adapt to user-specific patterns and find the relatively optimal channels, frequency band and time interval for feature extraction. The classification results on the BCI Competition III Dataset IVa and BCI Competition IV Dataset IIa clearly present the effectiveness of the proposed method outperforming most of the other competing methods in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective feature extraction and classification methods are of great importance for motor imagery (MI)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. The common spatial pattern (CSP) algorithm is a widely used feature extraction method for MI-based BCIs. In this work, we propose a novel spatial-frequency-temporal optimized feature sparse representation-based classification method. Optimal channels are selected based on relative entropy criteria. Significant CSP features on frequency-temporal domains are selected automatically to generate a column vector for sparse representation-based classification (SRC). We analyzed the performance of the new method on two public EEG datasets, namely BCI competition III dataset IVa which has five subjects and BCI competition IV dataset IIb which has nine subjects. Compared to the performance offered by the existing SRC method, the proposed method achieves average classification accuracy improvements of 21.568 and 14.38% for BCI competition III dataset IVa and BCI competition IV dataset IIb, respectively. Furthermore, our approach also shows better classification performance when compared to other competing methods for both datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Common spatial pattern (CSP) is most widely used in motor imagery based brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. In conventional CSP algorithm, pairs of the eigenvectors corresponding to both extreme eigenvalues are selected to construct the optimal spatial filter. In addition, an appropriate selection of subject-specific time segments and frequency bands plays an important role in its successful application. New method This study proposes to optimize spatial-frequency-temporal patterns for discriminative feature extraction. Spatial optimization is implemented by channel selection and finding discriminative spatial filters adaptively on each time-frequency segment. A novel Discernibility of Feature Sets (DFS) criteria is designed for spatial filter optimization. Besides, discriminative features located in multiple time-frequency segments are selected automatically by the proposed sparse time-frequency segment common spatial pattern (STFSCSP) method which exploits sparse regression for significant features selection. Finally, a weight determined by the sparse coefficient is assigned for each selected CSP feature and we propose a Weighted Naïve Bayesian Classifier (WNBC) for classification. Results Experimental results on two public EEG datasets demonstrate that optimizing spatial-frequency-temporal patterns in a data-driven manner for discriminative feature extraction greatly improves the classification performance. Comparison with existing methods The proposed method gives significantly better classification accuracies in comparison with several competing methods in the literature. Conclusions The proposed approach is a promising candidate for future BCI systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electroencephalography (EEG) based emotion recognition has become a hot research issue in the field of cognitive interaction and brain-computer interface (BCI). How to build a deep learning model which can fully learn frequency-spatial–temporal representation from complex emotional EEG data and has good neurological interpretability is still challenging. In this paper, a novel multiple frequency bands parallel spatial–temporal 3D deep residual learning framework (MFBPST-3D-DRLF) is proposed for EEG-based emotion recognition. Firstly, a new optimal frequency bands selection method based on group sparse regression is designed for characteristic analysis on frequency domain. Secondly, spatial–temporal 3D feature representations of multiple frequency bands are generated in the data preparation stage for fully expressing the discriminative local patterns among brain responses of different emotional states. Finally, a novel parallel 3D deep residual networks architecture is elaborately constructed to simultaneously extract high level abstract features and achieve accurate classification. Emotional EEG recognition performance of the proposed method has been evaluated on two benchmark datasets, namely SEED and SEED-IV. The proposed MFBPST-3D-DRLF achieves 96.67% and 88.21% on both datasets, outperforming several state-of-the-art algorithms. In addition, investigations on the intermediate results and model parameters reveal that neural signatures associated with different emotional states are traceable and gamma band is most suitable for EEG based emotion recognition. [Display omitted] • MFBPST-3D-DRLF has good representation learning ability on entire frequency-spatial–temporal domains. • MFBPST-3D-DRLF outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms on both SEED and SEED-IV datasets. • Single gamma band is most suitable for classifying both three-class and four-class emotions. • Neural signatures associated with different emotional states are traceable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The controlling of robotic arms based on brain–computer interface (BCI) can revolutionize the quality of life and living conditions for individuals with physical disabilities. Invasive electroencephalography (EEG)-based BCI has been able to control multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs) robotic arms in three dimensions. However, it is still hard to control a multi-DOF robotic arm to reach and grasp the desired target accurately in complex three-dimensional (3D) space by a noninvasive system mainly due to the limitation of EEG decoding performance. In this study, we propose a noninvasive EEG-based BCI for a robotic arm control system that enables users to complete multitarget reach and grasp tasks and avoid obstacles by hybrid control. The results obtained from seven subjects demonstrated that motor imagery (MI) training could modulate brain rhythms, and six of them completed the online tasks using the hybrid-control-based robotic arm system. The proposed system shows effective performance due to the combination of MI-based EEG, computer vision, gaze detection, and partially autonomous guidance, which drastically improve the accuracy of online tasks and reduce the brain burden caused by long-term mental activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We focus on feature optimization of motor imagery EEG in BCI filed. • The significances of spatial channels are measured by random forest (RF) algorithm. • Temporal-frequency feature patterns are investigated via composite kernel learning. • Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is applied for searching the best parameters. • Optimize spatial-temporal-frequency patterns comprehensively and simultaneously. Brain computer interface (BCI) is a novel technology that translates human intention into command to control external device. Common spatial pattern (CSP) algorithm is most frequently applied for feature engineering in motor imagery (MI) based BCI system. How to select the most suitable spatial channels, temporal & frequency parameters for different people before CSP is still a challenging issue which greatly affects the performance of MI based BCI system. In this paper, we introduce an adaptive multi-domain feature joint optimization framework. Specifically, random forest (RF) and composite kernel support vector machine (CKSVM) algorithms are used to measure the significances of different spatial channels and local temporal-frequency segments. An ant colony optimization (ACO) based scheme is proposed to search the most suitable spatial channels and temporal-frequency segments. We evaluated the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm on public BCI competition III data set IVa and two self-collected MI EEG datasets. For BCI competition III data set IVa, our method outperforms some other close related algorithms in the literature. For the two self-collected datasets, compared to the traditional manual parameter setting, the classification performance is proven to significantly improve (more than 15%) adopting our adaptive multi-domain parameters. Since our proposed method can simultaneously and automatically optimize subject-specific features in the entire spatial-temporal-frequency domains, the most discriminative CSP features can be selected and the performance of MI EEG classification is significantly improved. Thus, our research is a useful complement to the BCI field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]