ICA-based EEG denoising: a comparative analysis of fifteen methods

Independent Component Analysis (ICA) plays an important role in biomedical engineering. Indeed, the complexity of processes involved in biomedicine and the lack of reference signals make this blind approach a powerful tool to extract sources of interest. However, in practice, only few ICA algorithms such as SOB I, (extended) InfoMax and FastICA are used nowadays to process biomedical signals. In this paper we raise the question whether other ICA methods could be better suited in terms of performance and computational complexity. We focus on ElectroEncephaloGraphy (EEG) data denoising, and more particularly on removal of muscle artifacts from interictal epileptiform activity. Assumptions required by ICA are discussed in such a context. Then fifteen ICA algorithms, namely JADE, CoM2, SOBI, SOBIrob, (extended) InfoMax, PICA, two different implementations of FastICA, ERICA, SIMBEC, FOBIUMJAD, TFBSS, ICAR(3), FOOBI1 and 4-CANDHAP(c) are briefly described. Next they are studied in terms of performance and numerical complexity. Quantitative results are obtained on simulated epileptic data generated with a physiologically-plausible model. These results are also illustrated on real epileptic recordings.