Classifying Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder from Resting-State EEG using Convolutional Neural Networks: A Pilot Study

Identifying obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) using brain data remains challenging. Resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) offers an affordable and noninvasive approach, but identifying predictive signals in EEG data has met with little success, even with the application of traditional machine learning methods. We explored whether convolutional neural networks (CNNs) applied to EEG time-frequency representations can distinguish individuals with OCD from healthy controls.

We collected resting-state EEG data from 20 unmedicated participants (10 with OCD, 10 healthy controls). Four-second EEG segments were transformed into time-frequency representations. We then trained a 2D CNN using a leave-one-subject-out cross-validation framework to perform subject-level classification and compared its performance to a more traditional support vector machine (SVM) approach. Next, using multimodal fusion, we examined whether adding clinical and demographic information improved classification.

The CNN classifier achieved high subject-level performance, distinguishing individuals with an accuracy of 85.0% and an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.88. This significantly outperformed the SVM baseline, which performed no better than chance (45.0% accuracy, AUC: 0.47). A subsequent multimodal analysis revealed that clinical and demographic variables did not contribute any additional independent information.

CNNs applied to resting-state EEG show promise for identifying OCD, outperforming traditional machine learning methods. These findings highlight the potential of deep learning to uncover complex, diagnostically relevant patterns in neural data. While limited by sample size, this work supports further investigation into multimodal models for psychiatric classification, warranting replication in larger, more diverse samples.