Artifact Removal from EEG using Spatially Constrained Independent Component Analysis and Wavelet Denoising with Otsu's Thresholding Technique

This paper presents a novel technique for removing the artifacts from the ElectroEncephaloGram (EEG) signals. EEG signals are influenced by different characteristics, like line interference, EOG (electro-oculogram) and ECG (electrocardiogram). The elimination of artifact from scalp EEGs is of substantial significance for both the automated and visual examination of underlying brainwave actions. These noise sources increase the difficulty in analyzing the EEG and obtaining clinical information related to pathology. Hence it is crucial to design a procedure to decrease such artifacts in EEG records. This paper uses Spatially-Constrained Independent Component Analysis (SCICA) to separate the Independent Components (ICs) from the initial EEG signal. As the next step, Wavelet Denoising (WD) is applied to extract the brain activity from purged artifacts, and finally the artifacts are projected back and subtracted from EEG signals to get clean EEG data. Here, thresholding plays an important role in delineating the artifacts and hence a better thresholding technique called Otsu', thresholding is applied. Experimental results show that the proposed technique results in better removal of artifacts. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICCTSD 2011