Deep learning for waveform identification of resting needle electromyography signals

Objective Given the recent advent in machine learning and artificial intelligence on medical data analysis, we hypothesized that the deep learning algorithm can classify resting needle electromyography (n-EMG) discharges. Methods Six clinically observed resting n-EMG signals were used as a dataset. The data were converted to Mel-spectrogram. Data augmentation was then applied to the training data. Deep learning algorithms were applied to assess the accuracies of correct classification, with or without the use of pre-trained weights for deep-learning networks. Results While the original data yielded the accuracy up to 0.86 on the test dataset, data-augmentation up to 200,000 training images showed significant increase in the accuracy to 1.0. The use of pre-trained weights (fine tuning) showed greater accuracy than “training from scratch”. Conclusions Resting n-EMG signals were successfully classified by deep-learning algorithm, especially with the use of data augmentation and transfer learning techniques. Significance Computer-aided signal identification of clinical n-EMG testing might be possible by deep-learning algorithms.