Epileptic seizure classifications of single-channel scalp EEG data using wavelet-based features and SVM

In this study, wavelet-based features of single-channel scalp EEGs recorded from subjects with intractable seizure are examined for epileptic seizure classification. The wavelet-based features extracted from scalp EEGs are simply based on detail and approximation coefficients obtained from the discrete wavelet transform. Support vector machine (SVM), one of the most commonly used classifiers, is applied to classify vectors of wavelet-based features of scalp EEGs into either seizure or non-seizure class. In patient-based epileptic seizure classification, a training data set used to train SVM classifiers is composed of wavelet-based features of scalp EEGs corresponding to the first epileptic seizure event. Overall, the excellent performance on patient-dependent epileptic seizure classification is obtained with the average accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of, respectively, 0.9687, 0.7299, and 0.9813. The vector composed of two wavelet-based features of scalp EEGs provide the best performance on patient-dependent epileptic seizure classification in most cases, i.e., 19 cases out of 24. The wavelet-based features corresponding to the 32–64, 8–16, and 4–8 Hz subbands of scalp EEGs are the mostly used features providing the best performance on patient-dependent classification. Furthermore, the performance on both patient-dependent and patient-independent epileptic seizure classifications are also validated using tenfold cross-validation. From the patient-independent epileptic seizure classification validated using tenfold cross-validation, it is shown that the best classification performance is achieved using the wavelet-based features corresponding to the 64–128 and 4–8 Hz subbands of scalp EEGs.