# Federated Motor Imagery Classification for Privacy-Preserving Brain-Computer Interfaces

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.01079 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01079/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 50 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.03167/) (2015)
- [Federated Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.06127/) (2018)
- [Sharpness-Aware Minimization for Efficiently Improving Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01412/) (2020)
- [Adaptive Federated Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.00295/) (2020)
- [Measuring the Effects of Non-Identical Data Distribution for Federated Visual Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.06335/) (2019)
- [Model-Contrastive Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16257/) (2021)
- [EEGNet: A Compact Convolutional Network for EEG-based Brain-Computer Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.08024/) (2016)
- [FedBN: Federated Learning on Non-IID Features via Local Batch Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.07623/) (2021)
- [A Survey on Federated Learning Systems: Vision, Hype and Reality for Data Privacy and Protection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.09693/) (2019)
- [Source Data-absent Unsupervised Domain Adaptation through Hypothesis Transfer and Labeling Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07297/) (2020)
- [Generalized Federated Learning via Sharpness Aware Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02618/) (2022)
- [Improving Generalization in Federated Learning by Seeking Flat Minima](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11834/) (2022)
- [MOABB: Trustworthy algorithm benchmarking for BCIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.06427/) (2018)
- [Privacy Preserving Machine Learning: Threats and Solutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.11238/) (2018)
- [Transfer Learning for Brain-Computer Interfaces: A Euclidean Space Data Alignment Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.05464/) (2018)
- [Transfer Learning for EEG-Based Brain-Computer Interfaces: A Review of Progress Made Since 2016](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.06286/) (2020)
- [Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning: Methods, Challenges and Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.04417/) (2021)
- [Federated Transfer Learning for EEG Signal Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.12321/) (2020)
- [Transfer Learning for Motor Imagery Based Brain-Computer Interfaces: A Complete Pipeline](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.03746/) (2020)
- [How deep is deep enough? -- Quantifying class separability in the hidden layers of deep neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.01753/) (2018)
- [Accelerated Federated Learning with Decoupled Adaptive Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.07223/) (2022)
- [FedFA: Federated Feature Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12995/) (2023)
- [Protecting Privacy of Users in Brain-Computer Interface Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.01586/) (2019)
- [Aggregating Intrinsic Information to Enhance BCI Performance through Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11636/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Revisiting Euclidean Alignment for Transfer Learning in EEG-Based Brain-Computer Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09203/) (2025)
- [PAT: Privacy-Preserving Adversarial Transfer for Accurate, Robust and Privacy-Preserving EEG Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11390/) (2024)
- [SAFE: Secure and Accurate Federated Learning for Privacy-Preserving Brain-Computer Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.05789/) (2026)
- [On using AI for EEG-based BCI applications: problems, current challenges and future trends](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.16168/) (2025)
- [Federated Learning in Offline and Online EMG Decoding: A Privacy and Performance Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.12652/) (2025)
- [NEXUS-MI: Communication-Aware Federated Personalization for Gateway-Coordinated Motor-Imagery Brain-Computer Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.09786/) (2026)
- [Personalised federated learning for Riemannian and Euclidean EEG decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.29037/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Training an accurate classifier for EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) requires EEG data from a large number of users, whereas protecting their data privacy is a critical consideration. Federated learning (FL) is a promising solution to this challenge. This paper proposes Federated classification with local Batch-specific batch normalization and Sharpness-aware minimization (FedBS) for privacy protection in EEG-based motor imagery (MI) classification. FedBS utilizes local batch-specific batch normalization to reduce data discrepancies among different clients, and sharpness-aware minimization optimizer in local training to improve model generalization. Experiments on three public MI datasets using three popular deep learning models demonstrated that FedBS outperformed six state-of-the-art FL approaches. Remarkably, it also outperformed centralized training, which does not consider privacy protection at all. In summary, FedBS protects user EEG data privacy, enabling multiple BCI users to participate in large-scale machine learning model training, which in turn improves the BCI decoding accuracy.