Decoding Neural Signals with a Compact and Interpretable Convolutional Neural Network

In this work, we motivate and present a novel compact CNN. For the architectures that combine the adaptation in both space and time, we describen a theoretically justified approach to interpreting the temporal and spatial weights. We apply the proposed architecture to Berlin BCI IV competition and our own datasets to decode electrocorticogram into finger kinematics. Without feature engineering our architecture delivers similar or better decoding accuracy as compared to the BCI competition winner. After training the network, we interpret the solution (spatial and temporal convolution weights) and extract physiologically meaningful patterns.