An Effective and Interpretable EEG-Based Depression Recognition Method Using Hybrid Feature Selection.

Overview

1. School of Communication and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210003, China; (X.X.); (Q.F.); (S.J.)

Abstract

Recent studies on EEG-based automated depression detection have primarily depended on complex deep learning models. While these methods improve classification performance, their practical application is limited by high computational complexity, challenging training processes, and poor interpretability. This paper proposes an efficient method for depression recognition, which extracts multi-domain features from preprocessed EEG signals and selects the most discriminative feature subset by integrating the rapid preliminary screening capability of RankSearch with the interactive optimization ability of the Genetic Algorithm (GA). Our approach first eliminates redundant features efficiently through RankSearch, then deeply explores inter-feature relationships via GA, significantly enhancing classification performance while maintaining feature-level interpretability. Using the optimized feature subset, we evaluate performance with multiple machine learning classifiers (Decision Tree, KNN, Random Forest, SVM, XGBoost). Experiments on the public HUSM dataset demonstrate superior performance under rigorous cross-validation (accuracy = 95.08%, sensitivity = 95.99%, specificity = 94.30%, F1-score = 95%, AUC = 0.9514), with feature importance analysis further confirming interpretability. Compared to existing models, our method achieves lower computational complexity and higher clinical practicality, offering a more efficient technical solution for objective depression diagnosis.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Data

Datasets cited

• figshare:4244171, at figshare; found in “Data Availability Statement”

Data Availability Statement

The original data presented in the study are openly available from FigShare at https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/EEG_Data_New/4244171 (accessed on 27 March 2026).

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Version 1, 30 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 4 authors, 5 keywords, 1 funder, 30 references.

Cite

This paper

Xu, X., Fan, Q., Ju, S., & Du, R. (2026). An Effective and Interpretable EEG-Based Depression Recognition Method Using Hybrid Feature Selection. Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland), 13(4), 410. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering13040410

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