Improving Multichannel Raw Electroencephalography-based Diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder by Pretraining Deep Learning Models with Single Channel Sleep Stage Data

As the field of deep learning has grown in recent years, its application to the domain of raw resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) has also increased. Relative to traditional machine learning methods or deep learning methods applied to extracted features, there are fewer methods for developing deep learning models on small raw EEG datasets. One potential approach for enhancing deep learning performance in this case is the use of transfer learning. In this study, we propose a novel EEG transfer learning approach wherein we first train a model on a large publicly available sleep stage classification dataset. We then use the learned representations to develop a classifier for automated major depressive disorder diagnosis with raw multichannel EEG. We find that our approach improves model performance, and we further examine how transfer learning affected the representations learned by the model through a pair of explainability analyses. Our proposed approach represents a significant step forward for the domain raw resting-state EEG classification. Furthermore, it has the potential to expand the use of deep learning methods across more raw EEG datasets and lead to the development of more reliable EEG classifiers. Clinical RelevanceThe proposed approach takes the field of deep learning in EEG a step closer to the robustness needed for clinical implementation.