Enhanced hybrid deep neural network for EEG-based schizophrenia diagnosis using functional and temporal features

Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder that disrupts cognition, emotions, and social behavior. Timely and accurate diagnosis is essential for effective treatment. Traditional diagnostic methods relying on clinical assessments have limitations, including subjectivity and time consumption. To address these challenges, there is increasing interest in utilizing neuroimaging techniques like electroencephalography (EEG) for schizophrenia diagnosis. EEG provides direct measures of brain activity and can reveal unique patterns associated with the disorder. This study proposes a novel approach that utilizes EEG signals to accurately diagnose schizophrenia, aiming to overcome the limitations of traditional methods. EEG data was collected from two groups: individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and a healthy control group. During a visual task, EEG signals were recorded and underwent preprocessing to remove artifacts and noise. The data was segmented into non-overlapping time windows, and functional and time-domain features were extracted. These features were then used as inputs to a hybrid deep neural network specifically designed for EEG data. The primary objective of the network was to distinguish between healthy individuals and those with schizophrenia. The proposed approach was benchmarked against established methods such as support vector machines and k-nearest neighbors, and it demonstrated superior performance. The evaluation was carried out using a robust k-fold cross-validation approach. Various performance metrics, including accuracy, sensitivity, and characteristic criterion, were used to assess the diagnostic accuracy and discriminative power of the network. The results showed that the hybrid deep neural network effectively identified individuals with schizophrenia. This study highlights the potential of EEG-based diagnostic approaches in accurately diagnosing schizophrenia and offers a promising avenue for reducing subjectivity and improving the efficiency of the diagnostic process. Future research should focus on expanding the dataset, investigating generalizability across different populations, and exploring potential clinical applications in real-world settings.