An Automatic Identification Method for the Blink Artifacts in the Magnetoencephalography with Machine Learning

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) detects very weak magnetic fields originating from the neurons so as to study human brain functions. The original detected MEG data always include interference generated by blinks, which can be called blink artifacts. Blink artifacts could cover the MEG signal we are interested in, and therefore need to be removed. Commonly used artifact cleaning algorithms are signal space projection (SSP) and independent component analysis (ICA). These algorithms need to locate the blink artifacts, which is typically done with the identification of the blink signals in the electrooculogram (EOG). The EOG needs to be measured by electrodes placed near the eye. In this work, a new algorithm is proposed for automatic and on-the-fly identification of the blink artifacts from the original detected MEG data based on machine learning; specifically, the artificial neural network (ANN). Seven hundred and one blink artifacts contained in eight MEG signal data sets are harnessed to verify the effect of the proposed blink artifacts identification algorithm. The results show that the method can recognize the blink artifacts from the original detected MEG data, providing a feasible MEG data-processing approach that can potentially be implemented automatically and simultaneously with MEG data measurement.