TransformEEG: Towards Improving Model Generalizability in Deep Learning-based EEG Parkinson's Disease Detection

Federico Del Pup; Riccardo Brun; Filippo Iotti; Edoardo Paccagnella; Mattia Pezzato; Sabrina Bertozzo; Andrea Zanola; Louis Fabrice Tshimanga; Henning Müller; Manfredo Atzori

arXiv · 2507.07622

TransformEEG: Towards Improving Model Generalizability in Deep Learning-based EEG Parkinson's Disease Detection

Federico Del Pup·Riccardo Brun·Filippo Iotti·Edoardo Paccagnella·Mattia Pezzato·Sabrina Bertozzo·Andrea Zanola·Louis Fabrice Tshimanga·Henning Müller·Manfredo Atzori

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Abstract

Electroencephalography (EEG) is establishing itself as an important, low-cost, noninvasive diagnostic tool for the early detection of Parkinson's Disease (PD). In this context, EEG-based Deep Learning (DL) models have shown promising results due to their ability to discover highly nonlinear patterns within the signal. However, current state-of-the-art DL models suffer from poor generalizability caused by high inter-subject variability. This high variability underscores the need for enhancing model generalizability by developing new architectures better tailored to EEG data. This paper introduces TransformEEG, a hybrid Convolutional-Transformer designed for Parkinson's disease detection using EEG data. Unlike transformer models based on the EEGNet structure, TransformEEG incorporates a depthwise convolutional tokenizer. This tokenizer is specialized in generating tokens composed by channel-specific features, which enables more effective feature mixing within the self-attention layers of the transformer encoder. To evaluate the proposed model, four public datasets comprising 290 subjects (140 PD patients, 150 healthy controls) were harmonized and aggregated. A 10-outer, 10-inner Nested-Leave-N-Subjects-Out (N-LNSO) cross-validation was performed to provide an unbiased comparison against seven other consolidated EEG deep learning models. TransformEEG achieved the highest balanced accuracy's median (78.45%) as well as the lowest interquartile range (6.37%) across all the N-LNSO partitions. When combined with data augmentation and threshold correction, median accuracy increased to 80.10%, with an interquartile range of 5.74%. In conclusion, TransformEEG produces more consistent and less skewed results. It demonstrates a substantial reduction in variability and more reliable PD detection using EEG data compared to the other investigated models.

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Federico Del Pup, Riccardo Brun, Filippo Iotti, Edoardo Paccagnella, Mattia Pezzato, Sabrina Bertozzo, Andrea Zanola, Louis Fabrice Tshimanga, Henning Müller, Manfredo Atzori. 2025-07-10. TransformEEG: Towards Improving Model Generalizability in Deep Learning-based EEG Parkinson's Disease Detection. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07622

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