Rewiring Human Brain Networks via Lightweight Dynamic Connectivity Framework: An EEG-Based Stress Validation

TL;DR

This study introduces a lightweight dynamic connectivity framework using EEG and machine learning to classify stress levels, demonstrating superior performance of time-varying measures over static ones.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel lightweight dynamic brain connectivity framework based on Time Varying Directed Transfer Function for EEG stress classification.

Findings

Alpha TV-DTF achieved 89.73% accuracy in 3-class stress classification.

XGBoost achieved 93.69% accuracy in 2-class stress classification.

Dynamic measures outperformed static functional connectivity in stress detection.

Abstract

In recent years, Electroencephalographic analysis has gained prominence in stress research when combined with AI and Machine Learning models for validation. In this study, a lightweight dynamic brain connectivity framework based on Time Varying Directed Transfer Function is proposed, where TV DTF features were validated through ML based stress classification. TV DTF estimates the directional information flow between brain regions across distinct EEG frequency bands, thereby capturing temporal and causal influences that are often overlooked by static functional connectivity measures. EEG recordings from the 32 channel SAM 40 dataset were employed, focusing on mental arithmetic task trials. The dynamic EEG-based TV-DTF features were validated through ML classifiers such as Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, Adaptive Boosting, and Extreme Gradient Boosting. Experimental results show that alpha-TV-DTF provided the strongest discriminative power, with SVM achieving 89.73% accuracy in 3-class classification and with XGBoost achieving 93.69% accuracy in 2 class classification. Relative to absolute power and phase locking based functional connectivity features, alpha TV DTF and beta TV DTF achieved higher performance across the ML models, highlighting the advantages of dynamic over static measures. Feature importance analysis further highlighted dominant long-range frontal parietal and frontal occipital informational influences, emphasizing the regulatory role of frontal regions under stress. These findings validate the lightweight TV-DTF as a robust framework, revealing spatiotemporal brain dynamics and directional influences across different stress levels.