Machine Learning-Based Depression Recognition With Preserved Efficacy From Compressed EEG Signals Using Wavelet...

Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals are critical for diagnosing neurological disorders like depression but require substantial storage, posing challenges for telemedicine. This paper proposes a novel lossy compression method integrating two-dimensional zigzag and spiral rearrangement, wavelet transform (bior4.4), and adaptive filtering to minimise storage while preserving depression recognition accuracy. Using the Hospital University Sains Malaysia (HUSM) dataset (34 depressed, 30 healthy subjects), EEG signals were converted into 2D matrices, compressed with four wavelet encoders (SPIHT, STW, EZW, LVL-MMC), and reconstructed. A feedforward artificial neural network (ANN) with 80 features (relative wavelet energy and entropy) classified depressed and healthy individuals. The combination of zigzag and STW methods achieved a compression ratio (CR) of 89.30, a percentage root-mean-square distortion (PRD) of 0.23, and a peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of 58.80 dB, with depression recognition accuracy of 90.2%. Classification was performed on both original and reconstructed signals to evaluate the effect of compression on diagnostic performance. Notably, compressed signals occasionally outperformed original signals, likely due to noise reduction. This method offers a robust solution for efficient EEG storage and accurate depression diagnosis in resource-constrained settings.