Skip to main content

Write a PREreview

Deep Learning Versus Classical Machine Learning for Schizophrenia Detection from EEG: A Cross-Dataset Generalization Study

Posted
Server
Preprints.org
DOI
10.20944/preprints202601.0860.v1

This work compares two common approaches for classifying schizophrenia from EEG data—EEGNet, a compact convolutional neural network, and a Random Forest trained on spectral features—with an emphasis on how well they generalize across datasets. The models were trained on the ASZED-153 dataset using subject-level stratified cross-validation and then evaluated on a completely separate Kaggle EEG dataset collected under different recording conditions. While internal validation appeared reasonably encouraging (70.7% accuracy for EEGNet and 66.8% for Random Forest), performance dropped sharply on the external dataset (54.6% and 45.4%, respectively). This 16–21 percentage point decline was consistent with Maximum Mean Discrepancy results (MMD=0.0914), indicating meaningful distribution differences between datasets. A simple domain adaptation attempt (correlation alignment) provided only a modest improvement (about +1.2 percentage points) and did not recover internal performance levels. Overall, these findings highlight the practical challenge of developing EEG-based classifiers that remain reliable across recording sites and underscore the importance of external validation and more robust cross-site training strategies before considering any clinical deployment.

You can write a PREreview of Deep Learning Versus Classical Machine Learning for Schizophrenia Detection from EEG: A Cross-Dataset Generalization Study. A PREreview is a review of a preprint and can vary from a few sentences to a lengthy report, similar to a journal-organized peer-review report.

Before you start

We will ask you to log in with your ORCID iD. If you don’t have an iD, you can create one.

What is an ORCID iD?

An ORCID iD is a unique identifier that distinguishes you from everyone with the same or similar name.

Start now