# Neural Codecs as Biosignal Tokenizers

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09095 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.09095/

## Key facts

- Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 31 of its 50 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Oct 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [Masked Autoencoders Are Scalable Vision Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.06377/) (2021)
- [Neural Discrete Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00937/) (2017)
- [TimesNet: Temporal 2D-Variation Modeling for General Time Series Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02186/) (2022)
- [SoundStream: An End-to-End Neural Audio Codec](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03312/) (2021)
- [High Fidelity Neural Audio Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13438/) (2022)
- [EEGNet: A Compact Convolutional Network for EEG-based Brain-Computer Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.08024/) (2016)
- [AudioLDM: Text-to-Audio Generation with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12503/) (2023)
- [Jukebox: A Generative Model for Music](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00341/) (2020)
- [MusicLM: Generating Music From Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11325/) (2023)
- [Large Brain Model for Learning Generic Representations with Tremendous EEG Data in BCI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18765/) (2024)
- [BENDR: using transformers and a contrastive self-supervised learning task to learn from massive amounts of EEG data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.12037/) (2021)
- [CBraMod: A Criss-Cross Brain Foundation Model for EEG Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07236/) (2024)
- [Decoding speech perception from non-invasive brain recordings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12266/) (2022)
- [Neuro-GPT: Towards A Foundation Model for EEG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.03764/) (2023)
- [CSBrain: A Cross-scale Spatiotemporal Brain Foundation Model for EEG Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23075/) (2025)
- [Self-supervised EEG Representation Learning for Automatic Sleep Staging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.15278/) (2021)
- [BrainOmni: A Brain Foundation Model for Unified EEG and MEG Signals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.18185/) (2025)
- [Self-supervised representation learning from electroencephalography signals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05419/) (2019)
- [Real-time Speech Frequency Bandwidth Extension](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.10677/) (2020)
- [emg2qwerty: A Large Dataset with Baselines for Touch Typing using Surface Electromyography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.20081/) (2024)
- [Neural decoding from stereotactic EEG: accounting for electrode variability across subjects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10458/) (2024)
- [Are Large Brainwave Foundation Models Capable Yet? Insights from Fine-tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.01196/) (2025)
- [ConvConcatNet: a deep convolutional neural network to reconstruct mel spectrogram from the EEG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04965/) (2024)
- [Toward Fully-End-to-End Listened Speech Decoding from EEG Signals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08644/) (2024)
- [Scaling Representation Learning from Ubiquitous ECG with State-Space Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15292/) (2023)
- [Knowledge-guided EEG Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03222/) (2024)
- [Enhancing Listened Speech Decoding from EEG via Parallel Phoneme Sequence Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.04844/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [MEG-XL: Data-Efficient Brain-to-Text via Long-Context Pre-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.02494/) (2026)
- [LibriBrain100: One Hundred Hours of Broad and Deep MEG Data for Neural Speech Decoding at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.25204/) (2026)
- [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)
- [Affect Decoding in Phonated and Silent Speech Production from Surface EMG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11715/) (2026)
- [SpecMoE: Spectral Mixture-of-Experts Foundation Model for Cross-Species EEG Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16739/) (2026)
- [Compact Latent Manifold Translation: A Parameter-Efficient Foundation Model for Cross-Modal and Cross-Frequency Physiological Signal Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13248/) (2026)
- [Aperiodic and Low-Frequency Spectral Bias in Reconstruction based EEG Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.26434/) (2026)
- [A Multi-dimensional Framework for Evaluating Generalization in EEG Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.28563/) (2026)
- [Kepler-Encoder-v0.1: Towards a Multimodal Embedding Model for Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.13522/) (2026)
- [Brain-to-Language Decoding: Tasks, Signals, Methods, Evaluation, Practical Use and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.27650/) (2026)
- [EMGBlend: Heterogeneity-Aware Self-Supervised Pretraining for Gesture and Force Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.25582/) (2026)
- [GeoRVQ: Decoder-aware geometry for residual-token prediction in physiological signals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.27018/) (2026)
- [Best Practices in EEG Analysis: Preprocessing, Modeling, and Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.36609/) (2026)
- [MyoCodec: A Streaming Neural Codec for Electromyography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.36687/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Neurophysiological recordings such as electroencephalography (EEG) offer accessible and minimally invasive means of estimating physiological activity for applications in healthcare, diagnostic screening, and even immersive entertainment. However, these recordings yield high-dimensional, noisy time-series data that typically require extensive pre-processing and handcrafted feature extraction to reveal meaningful information. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in applying representation learning techniques from large pre-trained (foundation) models to effectively decode and interpret biosignals. We discuss the challenges posed for incorporating such methods and introduce BioCodec, an alternative representation learning framework inspired by neural codecs to capture low-level signal characteristics in the form of discrete tokens. Pre-trained on thousands of EEG hours, BioCodec shows efficacy across multiple downstream tasks, ranging from clinical diagnostic tasks and sleep physiology to decoding speech and motor imagery, particularly in low-resource settings. Additionally, we provide a qualitative analysis of codebook usage and estimate the spatial coherence of codebook embeddings from EEG connectivity. Notably, we also document the suitability of our method to other biosignal data, i.e., electromyographic (EMG) signals. Overall, the proposed approach provides a versatile solution for biosignal tokenization that performs competitively with state-of-the-art models. The source code and model checkpoints are shared.