EEG compression of scalp recordings based on dipole fitting

A novel technique for electroencephalogram (EEG) compression is proposed in this paper. This technique models the intrinsic dependence inherent between the different EEG channels. It is based on methods borrowed from dipole fitting that is usually used in order to find a solution to the classic problems in EEG analysis: inverse and forward problems. To compress the EEG signals, the forward model based on approximated source dipoles is first used to provide an approximation of the recorded signals. Then, (based on a smoothness factor) appropriate coding techniques are suggested to compress the residuals of the fitting process. Results show that this technique works well for different recordings and for different patients, and is even able to provide near-lossless compression for certain types of recordings.