Reliable detection of event-related potentials (ERPs) at the single-trial level remains a major challenge due to the low signal-to-noise ratio EEG recordings. In this work, we investigate whether incorporating prior knowledge about ERP templates into deep learning models can improve detection performance. We employ the Deep-Match framework for ERP detection using multi-channel EEG signals. The model is trained in two stages. First, an encoder-decoder architecture is trained to reconstruct input EEG signals, enabling the network to learn compact signal representations. In the second stage, the decoder is replaced with a detection module, and the network is fine-tuned for ERP identification. Two model variants are evaluated: a standard model with randomly initialized filters and a Deep-MF model in which input kernels are initialized using ERP templates. Model performance is assessed on a single-trial ERP detection task using leave-one-subject-out validation. The proposed Deep-MF model slightly outperforms the detector with standard kernel initialization for most held-out subjects. Despite substantial inter-subject variability, Deep-MF achieves a higher average F1-score (0.37) compared to the standard network (0.34), indicating improved robustness to cross-subject differences. The best performance obtained by Deep-MF reaches an F1-score of 0.71, exceeding the maximum score achieved by the standard model (0.59). These results demonstrate that ERP-informed kernel initialization can provide consistent improvements in subject-independent single-trial ERP detection. Overall, the findings highlight the potential of integrating domain knowledge with deep learning architectures for EEG analysis. The proposed approach represents a step toward practical wearable EEG and passive brain-computer interface systems capable of real-time monitoring of cognitive processes.
Figures & tables
Figure 1: Architecture of the model. The model was trained in two stages. In the first stage, the encoder–decoder network was trained to reconstruct the input signal. Two models were trained: Deep-MF, with input filters initialized using ERP templates, and a standard model with random initialization. In the second stage, the decoder part of the network was replaced with a detector, and the models were fine-tuned for ERP detection.
Figure 2: Grand-average event-related potentials (ERPs) for representative EEG leads across subjects. Clear ERP components are visible over central electrodes (C3, Cz, Pz, and C4), whereas more distant electrodes show weaker or absent responses. Only a subset of leads is displayed for clarity; similar symmetrical patterns were observed across contra-lateral electrodes.
Figure 3: F1-scores obtained for each subject using leave-one-subject-out cross-validation. Deep-MF consistently outperformed the standard network on the majority of subjects and achieved a higher mean F1-score (0.37 vs. 0.34). The lowest performance for both methods occurred for Subject 10 (F1 = 0.01).
Electroencephalography (EEG) studies brain-generated electrical activity to understand cognition and support diagnosis, monitoring, and brain-computer interfaces.
Electroencephalography (EEG) classification plays a key role in brain-computer interface (BCI) systems, yet it remains challenging due to the low signal-to-noise ratio, temporal variability of neural responses, and limited data availability. In this paper, we present a comparative study of deep learning architectures for classifying event-related potentials (ERPs) in EEG signals. The preprocessing pipeline includes bandpass filtering, spatial filtering, and normalization. We design and compare three main pipelines: a 2D convolutional neural network (CNN) using Common Spatial Pattern (CSP), a second 2D CNN trained directly on raw data for a fair comparison, and a 3D CNN that jointly models spatiotemporal representations. To address ERP latency variations, we introduce a temporal shift augmentation strategy during training. At inference time, we employ a confidence-based test-time voting mechanism to improve prediction stability across shifted trials. An experimental evaluation on a stratified five-fold cross-validation protocol demonstrates that while CSP provides a benefit to the 2D architecture, the proposed 3D CNN significantly outperforms both 2D variants in terms of AUC and balanced accuracy. These findings highlight the effectiveness of temporal-aware architectures and augmentation strategies for robust EEG signal classification.
Aryan Patodiya, Hubert Cecotti
Department of Computer Science California State University, Fresno Fresno, CA, USA
Deep Riemannian networks provide a powerful framework for Electroencephalography (EEG) decoding, but their practical applications are severely constrained. Accurately decoding EEG signals requires modeling complex temporal dynamics across multiple rhythms, which results in high-dimensional Riemannian inputs and significant computational costs. To address this, we propose the Manifold Pooling Network (MPNet). MPNet uses a rhythm-adaptive convolutional frontend to extract comprehensive time-frequency representations and generate multi-view Riemannian nodes. A novel manifold node pooling layer is then proposed to aggregate these nodes into a single fusion node with a fixed size, enabling the following deep Riemannian network to process it with greatly reduced costs. Experiments on two public EEG datasets show that MPNet achieves state-of-the-art accuracy, runs up to 10 times faster than the comparable Riemannian model, and maintains robust performance under limited-data conditions. These findings highlight MPNet's practicality and efficiency for real-world EEG applications.
Guoqing Cai, Kai Zeng, Shoulin Huang +1
Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, China · Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, China · Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a widely adopted technique for monitoring brain activity, offering valuable insights into neurological states due to its high temporal resolution and cost-effectiveness. To enhance the analysis of complex EEG data, we propose EEG-TransNet, an architecture designed to capture temporal, regional, and synchronous features of EEG signals. EEG-TransNet introduces three key modules: 1) a preprocessing and feature extraction module leveraging ResNet and wavelet-based denoising, 2) a Local Self-Attention Block for regional feature learning, and 3) a Fuzzy-Attention Synchronous Transformer (FAST) to model spatiotemporal dependencies. Through extensive experiments on three EEG datasets (BETA, SEED, and DepEEG), the proposed model consistently outperforms other methods in terms of classification accuracy and robustness across varying signal lengths. Ablation studies confirm the contribution of the Local Self-Attention Block in improving performance, and the inclusion of depthwise separable convolutions in the decoder reduces computational complexity while maintaining high accuracy. EEG-TransNet's ability to generalize across subjects with minimal performance variation highlights its potential as a robust tool for EEG-based brain activity classification and emotion recognition tasks.
Xinglong Cui, Dian Gu
Beijing Neurodeep Technology Co., Ltd, Beijing, 100176, China · University of Pennsylvania, Seattle, 98121, USA