DLGE: Dual Local-Global Encoding for Generalizable Cross-BCI-Paradigm

Deep learning models have been frequently used to decode a single brain-computer interface (BCI) paradigm based on electroencephalography (EEG). It is challenging to decode multiple BCI paradigms using one model due to diverse barriers, such as different channel configurations and disparate task-related representations. In this study, we propose Dual Local-Global Encoder (DLGE), enabling the classification across different BCI paradigms. To address the heterogeneity in EEG channel configurations across paradigms, we employ an anatomically inspired brain-region partitioning and padding strategy to standardize EEG channel configuration. In the proposed model, the local encoder is designed to learn shared features across BCI paradigms within each brain region based on time-frequency information, which integrates temporal attention on individual channels with spatial attention among channels for each brain region. These shared features are subsequently aggregated in the global encoder to form respective paradigm-specific feature representations. Three BCI paradigms (motor imagery, resting state, and driving fatigue) were used to evaluate the proposed model. The results demonstrate that our model is capable of processing diverse BCI paradigms without retraining and retuning, achieving average macro precision, recall, and F1-score of 60.16%, 59.88%, and 59.56%, respectively. We made an initial attempt to develop a general model for cross-BCI-paradigm classification, avoiding retraining or redevelopment for each paradigm. This study paves the way for the development of an effective but simple model for cross-BCI-paradigm decoding, which might benefit the design of portable devices for universal BCI decoding.