# A Survey on Bridging EEG Signals and Generative AI: From Image and Text to Beyond

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.12048 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12048/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Medical imaging and segmentation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 51 of its 146 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Feb 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Medical imaging and segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/medical-imaging-and-segmentation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 51)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [BERTScore: Evaluating Text Generation with BERT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.09675/) (2019)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [HuBERT: Self-Supervised Speech Representation Learning by Masked Prediction of Hidden Units](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07447/) (2021)
- [Inception-v4, Inception-ResNet and the Impact of Residual Connections on Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.07261/) (2016)
- [BLEURT: Learning Robust Metrics for Text Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04696/) (2020)
- [HiFi-GAN: Generative Adversarial Networks for Efficient and High Fidelity Speech Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.05646/) (2020)
- [An Introduction to Variational Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.02691/) (2019)
- [Self-Attention Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.08318/) (2018)
- [A Lip Sync Expert Is All You Need for Speech to Lip Generation In The Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.10010/) (2020)
- [EEGNet: A Compact Convolutional Network for EEG-based Brain-Computer Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.08024/) (2016)
- [AudioLDM 2: Learning Holistic Audio Generation with Self-supervised Pretraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.05734/) (2023)
- [Decoding Natural Images from EEG for Object Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.13234/) (2023)
- [Visual Decoding and Reconstruction via EEG Embeddings with Guided Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07721/) (2024)
- [Deep Learning Human Mind for Automated Visual Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.00344/) (2016)
- [Open Vocabulary Electroencephalography-To-Text Decoding and Zero-shot Sentiment Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.02690/) (2021)
- [ZuCo 2.0: A Dataset of Physiological Recordings During Natural Reading and Annotation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.00903/) (2019)
- [DreamDiffusion: Generating High-Quality Images from Brain EEG Signals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16934/) (2023)
- [Decoding Brain Representations by Multimodal Learning of Neural Activity and Visual Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.10974/) (2018)
- [DeWave: Discrete EEG Waves Encoding for Brain Dynamics to Text Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.14030/) (2023)
- [Are EEG-to-Text Models Working?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06459/) (2024)
- [EEG2IMAGE: Image Reconstruction from EEG Brain Signals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10121/) (2023)
- [Towards Voice Reconstruction from EEG during Imagined Speech](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.07173/) (2023)
- [Learning Robust Deep Visual Representations from EEG Brain Recordings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16532/) (2023)
- [EEG2TEXT: Open Vocabulary EEG-to-Text Decoding with EEG Pre-Training and Multi-View Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.02165/) (2024)
- [Self-supervised Learning for Electroencephalogram: A Systematic Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.05446/) (2024)
- [Is Generator Conditioning Causally Related to GAN Performance?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.08768/) (2018)
- [Thought2Text: Text Generation from EEG Signal using Large Language Models (LLMs)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07507/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Foundation Models for Cross-Domain EEG Analysis Application: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.15716/) (2025)
- [Transformer-based EEG Decoding: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02320/) (2025)
- [An Approach to Simultaneous Acquisition of Real-Time MRI Video, EEG, and Surface EMG for Articulatory, Brain, and Muscle Activity During Speech Production](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.04840/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Decoding neural activity into human-interpretable representations is a key research direction in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and computational neuroscience. Recent progress in machine learning and generative AI has driven growing interest in transforming non-invasive Electroencephalography (EEG) signals into images, text, and audio. This survey consolidates and analyzes developments across EEG-to-image synthesis, EEG-to-text generation, and EEG-to-audio reconstruction. We conducted a structured literature search across major databases (2017-2025), extracting key information on datasets, generative architectures (GANs, VAEs, transformers, diffusion models), EEG feature-encoding techniques, evaluation metrics, and the major challenges shaping current work in this area. Our review finds that EEG-to-image models predominantly employ encoder-decoder architectures built on GANs, VAEs, or diffusion models; EEG-to-text approaches increasingly leverage transformer-based language models for open-vocabulary decoding; and EEG-to-audio methods commonly map EEG signals to mel-spectrograms that are subsequently rendered into audio using neural vocoders. Despite promising advances, the field remains constrained by small and heterogeneous datasets, limited cross-subject generalization, and the absence of standardized benchmarks. By consolidating methodological trends and available datasets, this survey provides a foundational reference for advancing EEG-based generative AI and supporting reproducible research. We further highlight open-source datasets and baseline implementations to facilitate systematic benchmarking and accelerate progress in EEG-driven neural decoding.