A Novel Permutation Entropy-Based EEG Channel Selection for Improving Epileptic Seizure Prediction

The key research aspects of detecting and predicting epileptic seizures using electroencephalography (EEG) signals are feature extraction and classification. This paper aims to develop a highly effective and accurate algorithm for seizure prediction. Efficient channel selection could be one of the solutions as it can decrease the computational loading significantly. In this research, we present a patient-specific optimization method for EEG channel selection based on permutation entropy (PE) values, employing K nearest neighbors (KNNs) combined with a genetic algorithm (GA) for epileptic seizure prediction. The classifier is the well-known support vector machine (SVM), and the CHB-MIT Scalp EEG Database is used in this research. The classification results from 22 patients using the channels selected to the patient show a high prediction rate (average 92.42%) compared to the SVM testing results with all channels (71.13%). On average, the accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity with selected channels are improved by 10.58%, 23.57%, and 5.56%, respectively. In addition, four patient cases validate over 90% accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity rates with just a few selected channels. The corresponding standard deviations are also smaller than those used by all channels, demonstrating that tailored channels are a robust way to optimize the seizure prediction.