Deep Learning with Dual-Channel Feature Fusion for Epileptic EEG Signal Classification

Background: Electroencephalography (EEG) signals play a crucial role in diagnosing epilepsy by reflecting distinct patterns associated with normal brain activity, ictal (seizure) states, and interictal (between-seizure) periods. However, the manual classification of these patterns is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and depends heavily on specialized expertise. While deep learning methods have shown promise, many current models suffer from limitations such as excessive complexity, high computational demands, and insufficient generalizability. Developing lightweight and accurate models for real-time epilepsy detection remains a key challenge. Methods: This study proposes a novel dual-channel deep learning model to classify epileptic EEG signals into three categories: normal, ictal, and interictal states. Channel 1 integrates a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) network with a Squeeze-and-Excitation (SE) ResNet attention module to dynamically emphasize critical feature channels. Channel 2 employs a dual-branch convolutional neural network (CNN) to extract deeper and distinct features. The model’s performance was evaluated on the publicly available Bonn EEG dataset. Results: The proposed model achieved an outstanding accuracy of 98.57%. The dual-channel structure improved specificity to 99.43%, while the dual-branch CNN boosted sensitivity by 5.12%. Components such as SE-ResNet attention modules contributed 4.29% to the accuracy improvement, and BiLSTM further enhanced specificity by 1.62%. Ablation studies validated the significance of each module. Conclusions: By leveraging a lightweight design and attention-based mechanisms, the dual-channel model offers high diagnostic precision while maintaining computational efficiency. Its applicability to real-time automated diagnosis positions it as a promising tool for clinical deployment across diverse patient populations.