Artifact Removal Methods in EEG Recordings: A Review

To obtain the correct analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, non-physiological and physiological artifacts should be removed from EEG signals. This study aims to give an overview on the existing methodology for removing physiological artifacts, e.g., ocular, cardiac, and muscle artifacts. The datasets, simulation platforms, and performance measures of artifact removal methods in previous related research are summarized. The advantages and disadvantages of each technique are discussed, including regression method, filtering method, blind source separation (BSS), wavelet transform (WT), empirical mode decomposition (EMD), singular spectrum analysis (SSA), and independent vector analysis (IVA). Also, the applications of hybrid approaches are presented, including discrete wavelet transform - adaptive filtering method (DWT-AFM), DWT-BSS, EMD-BSS, singular spectrum analysis - adaptive noise canceler (SSA-ANC), SSA-BSS, and EMD-IVA. Finally, a comparative analysis for these existing methods is provided based on their performance and merits. The result shows that hybrid methods can remove the artifacts more effectively than individual methods

Robust artifactual independent component classification for BCI practitioners

Objective. EEG artifacts of non-neural origin can be separated from neural signals by independent component analysis (ICA). It is unclear (1) how robustly recently proposed artifact classifiers transfer to novel users, novel paradigms or changed electrode setups, and (2) how artifact cleaning by a machine learning classifier impacts the performance of brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). Approach. Addressing (1), the robustness of different strategies with respect to the transfer between paradigms and electrode setups of a recently proposed classifier is investigated on offline data from 35 users and 3 EEG paradigms, which contain 6303 expert-labeled components from two ICA and preprocessing variants. Addressing (2), the effect of artifact removal on single-trial BCI classification is estimated on BCI trials from 101 users and 3 paradigms. Main results. We show that (1) the proposed artifact classifier generalizes to completely different EEG paradigms. To obtain similar results under massively reduced electrode setups, a proposed novel strategy improves artifact classification. Addressing (2), ICA artifact cleaning has little influence on average BCI performance when analyzed by state-of-the-art BCI methods. When slow motor-related features are exploited, performance varies strongly between individuals, as artifacts may obstruct relevant neural activity or are inadvertently used for BCI control. Significance. Robustness of the proposed strategies can be reproduced by EEG practitioners as the method is made available as an EEGLAB plug-in.EC/FP7/224631/EU/Tools for Brain-Computer Interaction/TOBIBMBF, 01GQ0850, Verbundprojekt: Bernstein Fokus Neurotechnologie - Nichtinvasive Neurotechnologie für Mensch-Maschine Interaktion - Teilprojekte A1, A3, A4, B4, W3, ZentrumDFG, 194657344, EXC 1086: BrainLinks-BrainTool

Blind Source Separation Methods Applied to Muscle Artefacts Removing from Epileptic Eeg Recording: A Comparative Study.

International audienceElectroencephalogram (EEG) recordings are often contaminated with muscle artifacts. These artifacts obscure the EEG and complicate its interpretation or even make the interpretation unfeasible. In this paper, realistic spike EEG signals are simulated from the activation of a 5 cm2 epileptic patch in the left superior temporal gyrus. Background activities and real muscle artifacts are then added to the simulated data. We compare the efficiency of Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and Blind Source Separation based on Canonical Correlation Analysis (BSS-CCA) to remove muscle artifacts from the EEG signals. The quantitative comparison indicates that the EMD approach exhibits a better performance than ICA and BSS-CCA, especially in the case of very low Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)

A fast approach to removing muscle artifacts for EEG with signal serialization based Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition

An electroencephalogram (EEG) is an electrophysiological signal reflecting the functional state of the brain. As the control signal of the brain-computer interface (BCI), EEG may build a bridge between humans and computers to improve the life quality for patients with movement disorders. The collected EEG signals are extremely susceptible to the contamination of electromyography (EMG) artifacts, affecting their original characteristics. Therefore, EEG denoising is an essential preprocessing step in any BCI system. Previous studies have confirmed that the combination of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and canonical correlation analysis (CCA) can effectively suppress EMG artifacts. However, the time-consuming iterative process of EEMD limits the application of the EEMD-CCA method in real-time monitoring of BCI. Compared with the existing EEMD, the recently proposed signal serialization based EEMD (sEEMD) is a good choice to provide effective signal analysis and fast mode decomposition. In this study, an EMG denoising method based on sEEMD and CCA is discussed. All of the analyses are carried out on semi-simulated data. The results show that, in terms of frequency and amplitude, the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) decomposed by sEEMD are consistent with the IMFs obtained by EEMD. There is no significant difference in the ability to separate EMG artifacts from EEG signals between the sEEMD-CCA method and the EEMD-CCA method (p > 0.05). Even in the case of heavy contamination (signal-to-noise ratio is less than 2 dB), the relative root mean squared error is about 0.3, and the average correlation coefficient remains above 0.9. The running speed of the sEEMD-CCA method to remove EMG artifacts is significantly improved in comparison with that of EEMD-CCA method (p < 0.05). The running time of the sEEMD-CCA method for three lengths of semi-simulated data is shortened by more than 50%. This indicates that sEEMD-CCA is a promising tool for EMG artifact removal in real-time BCI systems.Fil: Dai, Yangyang. Nankai University; ChinaFil: Duan, Feng. Nankai University; ChinaFil: Feng, Fan. Nankai University; ChinaFil: Sun, Zhe. RIKEN; JapónFil: Zhang, Yu. Lehigh University Bethlehem; Estados UnidosFil: Caiafa, César Federico. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía; ArgentinaFil: Marti Puig, Pere. Central University of Catalonia; EspañaFil: Solé Casals, Jordi. Central University of Catalonia; Españ