Predicting Major Depressive Disorder Using Neural Networks from Spectral Measures of EEG Data

Processing electroencephalogram (EEG) data using neural networks is becoming increasingly important in modern medicine. This study introduces the development of a neural network method using a combination of psychological questionnaire data and spectral characteristics of resting-state EEG. The data were collected from 71 individuals: 42 healthy and 29 with major depressive disorder (MDD). We evaluated four classes of algorithms—traditional machine learning, deep learning (LSTM), ablation analysis, and feature importance analysis—for two primary tasks: binary classification (healthy vs. MDD) and regression for predicting Beck Depression Inventory scores (BDI). Our results demonstrate that the superiority of a given method is task-dependent. For regression, an LSTM network applied to delta-rhythm EEG data achieved a breakthrough performance of R² = 0.742 (MAE = 6.114), representing an 86% improvement over traditional Ridge regression. Ablation studies identified delta and alpha rhythms as the most informative neurophysiological biomarkers. Furthermore, feature importance analysis revealed a triad of dominant psychometric predictors: ruminative thinking (31.2%), age (27.9%), and hostility (18.5%), which collectively accounted for 75.2% of the feature importance in predicting severity. LSTM on spectral EEG data provides a superior quantitative assessment of depression severity, while Logistic Regression on psychometric or EEG data offers a highly reliable tool for screening and confirmatory diagnosis. This methodology provides a robust, objective framework for MDD diagnosis that is independent of a patient’s subjective self-assessment, thus facilitating enhanced clinical decision-making and personalized treatment monitoring.