Adaptive Common Spatial Patterns Research Articles

A neurophysiological approach to spatial filter selection for adaptive brain–computer interfaces

Objective. The common spatial patterns (CSP) algorithm is an effective method to extract discriminatory features from electroencephalography (EEG) to be used by a brain–computer interface (BCI). However, informed selection of CSP filters typically requires oversight from a BCI expert to accept or reject filters based on the neurophysiological plausibility of their activation patterns. Our goal was to identify, analyze and automatically classify prototypical CSP patterns to enhance the prediction of motor imagery states in a BCI. Approach. A data-driven approach that used four publicly available EEG datasets was adopted. Cluster analysis revealed recurring, visually similar CSP patterns and a convolutional neural network was developed to distinguish between established CSP pattern classes. Furthermore, adaptive spatial filtering schemes that utilize the categorization of CSP patterns were proposed and evaluated. Main results. Classes of common neurophysiologically probable and improbable CSP patterns were established. Analysis of the relationship between these categories of CSP patterns and classification performance revealed discarding neurophysiologically improbable filters can decrease decoder performance. Further analysis revealed that the spatial orientation of EEG modulations can evolve over time, and that the features extracted from the original CSP filters can become inseparable. Importantly, it was shown through a novel adaptive CSP technique that adaptation in response to these emerging patterns can restore feature separability. Significance. These findings highlight the importance of considering and reporting on spatial filter activation patterns in both online and offline studies. They also emphasize to researchers in the field the importance of spatial filter adaptation in BCI decoder design, particularly for online studies with a focus on training users to develop stable and suitable brain patterns.

Advanced Machine-Learning Methods for Brain-Computer Interfacing.

The brain-computer interface (BCI) connects the brain and the external world through an information transmission channel by interpreting the physiological information of the brain during thinking activities. The effective classification of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is the key to improving the performance of the system. To improve the classification accuracy of EEG signals in the BCI system, the transfer learning algorithm and the improved Common Spatial Pattern (CSP) algorithm are combined to construct a data classification model. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified. The results show that in actual and imagined movements, the accuracy of the left- and right-hand movements at different speeds is higher than when the speeds are the same. The proposed Adaptive Composite Common Spatial Pattern (ACCSP) and Self Adaptive Common Spatial Pattern (SACSP) algorithms have good classification effects on 5 subjects, with an average classification accuracy rate of 83.58 percent, which is an increase of 6.96 percent compared with traditional algorithms. When the training sample size is 10, the classification accuracy of the ACCSP algorithm is higher than that of the traditional CSP algorithm. The improved CSP algorithm combined with transfer learning embodies a good classification effect in both ACCSP and SACSP. Especially, the performance of SACSP mode is better. Combining the improved CSP algorithm proposed with the CSP-based transfer learning algorithm can improve the classification accuracy of the BCI classifier.

Adaptation of Common Spatial Patterns based on mental fatigue for motor-imagery BCI

Common Spatial Pattern (CSP) is the most popular method in motor imagery (MI) based Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCI) for extracting features from electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. Due to the non-stationary nature of EEG signals, the CSP computed on the training data may not be optimal for the evaluation data. One of the major causes of such non-stationarity is the change in user's cognitive state due to fatigue, frustration, low arousal level, etc. This paper proposes an adaptive scheme for the CSP based on the mental fatigue of the user. The proposed method uses Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) active learning to adapt the CSP. Breaking ties criterion is used for selecting samples from the evaluation data. The separability of MI EEG features extracted with the proposed adaptive CSP has been compared with that of conventional CSP in terms of three separability metrics: Davies Bouldin Index (DBI), Fisher's Score (FS) and Dunn's Index (DI). Experimental results show significantly higher separability of features extracted with adaptive CSP as compared to that with conventional CSP.

Adaptive feature extraction in EEG-based motor imagery BCI: tracking mental fatigue

Objective. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals are non-stationary. This could be due to internal fluctuation of brain states such as fatigue, frustration, etc. This necessitates the development of adaptive brain-computer interfaces (BCI) whose performance does not deteriorate significantly with the adversary change in the cognitive state. In this paper, we put forward an unsupervised adaptive scheme to adapt the feature extractor of motor imagery (MI) BCIs by tracking the fatigue level of the user. Approach. Eleven subjects participated in the study during which they accomplished MI tasks while self-reporting their perceived levels of mental fatigue. Out of the 11 subjects, only six completed the whole experiment, while the others quit in the middle because of experiencing high fatigue. The adaptive feature extractor is attained through the adaptation of the common spatial patterns (CSP), one of the most popular feature extraction algorithms in EEG-based BCIs. The proposed method was analyzed in two ways: offline and in near real-time. The separability of the MI EEG features extracted by the proposed adaptive CSP (ADCSP) has been compared with that by the conventional CSP (C-CSP) and another CSP based adaptive method (ACSP) in terms of: Davies Bouldin index (DBI), Fisher score (FS) and Dunn’s index (DI). Main results. Experimental results show significant improvement in the separability of MI EEG features extracted by ADCSP as compared to that by C-CSP and ACSP. Significance. Collectively, the results of the experiments in this study suggest that adapting CSP based on mental fatigue can improve the class separability of MI EEG features.

An Adaptive CSP and Clustering Classification for Online Motor Imagery EEG

A potential limitation of motor imagery (MI) based brain-computer interface (BCI) (MI-BCI) is that it usually requires a relatively long time to record sufficient electroencephalogram (EEG) data for robust feature extraction and classification. Moreover, due to the non-stationarities in EEG signals, the offline training model has poor adaptability and classification ability in cross-session or sample-wise online testing. Methods: To address the problems, we propose a model updating scheme with adaptive and fast operation. Based on the Common Spatial Pattern (CSP), we propose an online and fast generalized eigendecomposition method by Recursive Least Squares updates of the CSP filter coefficients (RLS-CSP), which allows incremental training for CSP spatial filters. Additionally, we present an Incremental Self-training Classification algorithm based on Density Clustering (ISCDC) to select high-confidence samples to update spatial filters and classifier, and classify at the same time. Results: We conducted extensive experiments to validate the efficiency of the proposed adaptive CSP and classifier on the BCI III_IVa and BCI III_V data sets. Experimental results demonstrate that RLS-CSP outperforms significantly in a small sample setting (SSS), and ISCDC has great adaptability in cross-session and non-stationary EEG signals. The results indicate that our proposed methods are feasible to improve the real-time performance of online BCI system.

An adaptive CSP filter to investigate user independence in a 3-class MI-BCI paradigm

This paper describes the implementation of a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) scheme using a common spatial patterns (CSP) filter in combination with a Recursive Least Squares (RLS) approach to iteratively update the coefficients of the CSP filter. The proposed adaptive CSP (ACSP) algorithm is made more robust by introducing regularization using Diagonal Loading (DL), and thus will be able to significantly reduce the length of training sessions when introducing new patients to the BCI system. The system is tested on a 4-class multi-limb motor imagery (MI) data set from the BCI competition IV (2a), and a more complex single limb 3-class MI dataset recorded in-house. The latter dataset is produced to mimic an upper limb rehabilitation session, e.g., after stroke. The findings indicate that when extensive calibration data is available, the ACSP performs comparably to the CSP (kappa value of 0.523 and 0.502, respectively, for the 4-class problem); for reduced calibration sessions, the ACSP significantly improved the performance of the system (up to 4-fold). The proposed paradigm proved feasible and the ACSP algorithm seems to enable a user or semi user independent scenario, where the need for long system calibration sessions without feedback is eliminated.

Improving brain–computer interface classification using adaptive common spatial patterns

Common Spatial Patterns (CSP) is a widely used spatial filtering technique for electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain–computer interface (BCI). It is a two-class supervised technique that needs subject-specific training data. Due to EEG nonstationarity, EEG signal may exhibit significant intra- and inter-subject variation. As a result, spatial filters learned from a subject may not perform well for data acquired from the same subject at a different time or from other subjects performing the same task. Studies have been performed to improve CSP׳s performance by adding regularization terms into the training. Most of them require target subjects׳ training data with known class labels. In this work, an adaptive CSP (ACSP) method is proposed to analyze single trial EEG data from single and multiple subjects. The method does not estimate target data׳s class labels during the adaptive learning and updates spatial filters for both classes simultaneously. The proposed method was evaluated based on a comparison study with the classic CSP and several CSP-based adaptive methods using motor imagery EEG data from BCI competitions. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method can improve the classification performance as compared to the other methods. For circumstances where true class labels of target data are not instantly available, it was examined if adding classified target data to training data would improve the ACSP learning. Experimental results show that it would be better to exclude them from the training data. The proposed ACSP method can be performed in real-time and is potentially applicable to various EEG-based BCI applications.

Adaptive feature extraction for EEG signal classification

One challenge in the current research of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) is how to classify time-varying electroencephalographic (EEG) signals as accurately as possible. In this paper, we address this problem from the aspect of updating feature extractors and propose an adaptive feature extractor, namely adaptive common spatial patterns (ACSP). Through the weighed update of signal covariances, the most discriminative features related to the current brain states are extracted by the method of multi-class common spatial patterns (CSP). Pseudo-online simulations of EEG signal classification with a support vector machine (SVM) classifier for multi-class mental imagery tasks show the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive feature extractor.