Weighted Brain Network Metrics for Decoding Action Intention Understanding Based on EEG

Abstract

Background: Understanding the action intentions of others is important for social and human-robot interactions. Recently, many state-of-the-art approaches have been proposed for decoding action intention understanding. Although these methods have some advantages, it is still necessary to design other tools that can more efficiently classify the action intention understanding signals. New method: Based on EEG, we first applied phase lag index (PLI) and weighted phase lag index (WPLI) to construct functional connectivity matrices in five frequency bands and sixty-three micro-time windows, then calculated nine graph metrics from these matrices and subsequently used the network metrics as features to classify different brain signals related to action intention understanding. Results: Compared with the single methods (PLI or WPLI), the combination method (PLI+WPLI) demonstrates some overwhelming victories. Most of the average classification accuracies exceed 70%, and some of them approach 80%. In statistical tests of brain network, many significantly different edges appear in the frontal, occipital, parietal and temporal regions. Conclusions: Weighted brain networks can effectively retain data information. The integrated method proposed in this study is extremely effective for investigating action intention understanding. Both the mirror neuron and mentalizing systems participate as collaborators in the process of action intention understanding.