A machine learning artefact detection method for single-channel infant event-related potential studies.

Abstract

<i>Objective</i>. Automated detection of artefact in stimulus-evoked electroencephalographic (EEG) data recorded in neonates will improve the reproducibility and speed of analysis in clinical research compared with manual identification of artefact. Some studies use very short, single-channel epochs of EEG data with little recorded EEG per infant-for example because the clinical vulnerability of the infants limits access for recording. Current artefact-detection methods that perform well on adult data and resting-state and multi-channel data in infants are not suitable for this application. The aim of this study was to create and test an automated method of detecting artefact in single-channel 1500 ms epochs of infant EEG.<i>Approach</i>. A total of 410 epochs of EEG were used, collected from 160 infants of 28-43 weeks postmenstrual age. This dataset-which was balanced to include epochs of background activity and responses to visual, auditory, tactile and noxious stimuli-was presented to seven independent raters, who independently labelled the epochs according to whether or not they were able to visually identify artefacts. The data was split into a training set (340 epochs) and an independent test set (70 epochs). A random forest model was trained to identify epochs as either artefact or not artefact.<i>Main results</i>. This model performs well, achieving a balanced accuracy of 0.81, which is as good as manual review of data. Accuracy was not significantly related to the infant age or type of stimulus.<i>Significance</i>. This method provides an objective tool for automated artefact rejection for short epoch, single-channel EEG in neonates and could increase the utility of EEG in neonates in both the clinical and research setting.