Modeling EEG Spectral Features through Warped Functional Mixed Membership Models

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Bayesian mixed membership model for EEG spectral analysis that accounts for temporal misalignment and individual variability, revealing neurophysiological features related to autism spectrum disorder.

Contribution

It presents a flexible hierarchical model that estimates spectral shapes, time transformations, and memberships, advancing functional data analysis for EEG signals in clinical research.

Findings

Recovered the 1/f pink noise feature in EEG data.

Quantified age and clinical effects on peak alpha frequency.

Validated model consistency with neuroimaging literature.

Abstract

A common concern in the field of functional data analysis is the challenge of temporal misalignment, which is typically addressed using curve registration methods. Currently, most of these methods assume the data is governed by a single common shape or a finite mixture of population level shapes. We introduce more flexibility using mixed membership models. Individual observations are assumed to partially belong to different clusters, allowing variation across multiple functional features. We propose a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate the underlying shapes, as well as the individual time-transformation functions and levels of membership. Motivating this work is data from EEG signals in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our method agrees with the neuroimaging literature, recovering the 1/f pink noise feature distinctly from the peak in the alpha band. Furthermore, the introduction of a regression component in the estimation of time-transformation functions quantifies the effect of age and clinical designation on the location of the peak alpha frequency (PAF).