EEG Based Depression Recognition by Combining Functional Brain Network and Traditional Biomarkers

This Electroencephalography (EEG)-based research is to explore the effective biomarkers for depression recognition. Resting-state EEG data were collected from 24 major depressive patients (MDD) and 29 normal controls using 128-electrode geodesic sensor net. To better identify depression, we extracted multi-type of EEG features including linear features (L), nonlinear features (NL), functional connectivity features phase lagging index (PLI) and network measures (NM) to comprehensively characterize the EEG signals in patients with MDD. And machine learning algorithms and statistical analysis were used to evaluate the EEG features. Combined multi-types features (All: L+ NL + PLI + NM) outperformed single-type features for classifying depression. Analyzing the optimal features set we found that compared to other type features, PLI occupied the largest proportion of which functional connections in intra-hemisphere were much more than that of in inter-hemisphere. In addition, when using PLI features and All features, high frequency bands (alpha, beta) could achieve obviously higher classification accuracy than low frequency bands (delta, theta). Parietal-occipital lobe in the high frequency bands had great effect in depression identification. In conclusion, combined multi-types EEG features along with a robust classifier can better distinguish depressive patients from normal controls. And intra-hemispheric functional connections might be an effective biomarker to detect depression. Hence, this paper may provide objective and potential electrophysiological characteristics in depression recognition.