Using Explainable AI for EEG-based Reduced Montage Neonatal Seizure Detection

Abstract: The neonatal period is the most vulnerable time for the development of seizures. Seizures in the immature brain lead to detrimental consequences, therefore require early diagnosis. The gold-standard for neonatal seizure detection currently relies on continuous video-EEG monitoring; which involves recording multi-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) alongside real-time video monitoring within a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). However, video-EEG monitoring technology requires clinical expertise and is often limited to technologically advanced and resourceful settings. Cost-effective new techniques could help the medical fraternity make an accurate diagnosis and advocate treatment without delay. In this work, a novel explainable deep learning model to automate the neonatal seizure detection process with a reduced EEG montage is proposed, which employs convolutional nets, graph attention layers, and fully connected layers. Beyond its ability to detect seizures in real-time with a reduced montage, this model offers the unique advantage of real-time interpretability. By evaluating the performance on the Zenodo dataset with 10-fold cross-validation, the presented model achieves an absolute improvement of 8.31% and 42.86% in area under curve (AUC) and recall, respectively.