Classification of fNIRS Data Under Uncertainty: A Bayesian Neural Network Approach

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive form of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). It is used for the imaging of brain hemodynamics and has gained popularity due to the certain pros it poses over other similar technologies. The overall functionalities encompass the capture, processing and classification of brain signals. Since hemodynamic responses are contaminated by physiological noises, several methods have been implemented in the past literature to classify the responses in focus from the unwanted ones. However, the methods, thus far does not take into consideration the uncertainty in the data or model parameters. In this paper, we use a Bayesian Neural Network (BNN) to carry out a binary classification on an open-access dataset, consisting of unilateral finger tapping (left- and right-hand finger tapping). A BNN uses Bayesian statistics to assign a probability distribution to the network weights instead of a point estimate. In this way, it takes data and model uncertainty into consideration while carrying out the classification. We used Variational Inference (VI) to train our model. Our model produced an overall classification accuracy of 86.44% over 30 volunteers. We illustrated how the evidence lower bound (ELBO) function of the model converges over iterations. We further illustrated the uncertainty that is inherent during the sampling of the posterior distribution of the weights. We also generated a ROC curve for our BNN classifier using test data from a single volunteer and our model has an AUC score of 0.855.

A Deep Learning Based Ternary Task Classification System Using Gramian Angular Summation Field in fNIRS Neuroimaging Data

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive, economical method used to study its blood flow pattern. These patterns can be used to classify tasks a subject is performing. Currently, most of the classification systems use simple machine learning solutions for the classification of tasks. These conventional machine learning methods, which are easier to implement and interpret, usually suffer from low accuracy and undergo a complex preprocessing phase before network training. The proposed method converts the raw fNIRS time series data into an image using Gramian Angular Summation Field. A Deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based architecture is then used for task classification, including mental arithmetic, motor imagery, and idle state. Further, this method can eliminate the feature selection stage, which affects the traditional classifiers' performance. This system obtained 87.14% average classification accuracy higher than any other method for the dataset.