Improved attention-based PCNN with GhostNet for epilepsy seizure detection using EEG and fMRI modalities: extractive pattern and histogram feature set.

Introduction: Detecting epileptic seizures remains a major challenge in clinical neurology due to the complex, heterogeneous, and non-stationary characteristics of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. Although recent machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) approaches have improved detection performance, most methods still struggle with limited interpretability, inadequate spatial-temporal modeling, and suboptimal generalization. To address these limitations, this study proposes an enhanced hybrid parallel convolutional-GhostNet framework (HPG-ESD) for robust seizure detection using multimodal EEG and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. Methods: The experimental data consist of pediatric scalp EEG recordings from 24 subjects in the CHB-MIT dataset (22-channel 10-20 system, 256 Hz sampling, continuous multi-hour recordings) and resting-state 3T fMRI scans from 52 participants in the UNAM TLE dataset (26 epilepsy patients and 26 healthy controls). EEG data underwent Gauss-based median filtering, while fMRI images were denoised using an adaptive weight-based Wiener filter. Spatial, temporal, and spectral EEG features were extracted alongside an enhanced common spatial pattern (E-CSP) representation, whereas fMRI features were obtained using deep 3D CNN embeddings combined with a smoothened pyramid histogram of oriented gradients (S-PHOG) descriptor. These multimodal features were fused within a soft voting hybrid parallel convolutional-GhostNet (S-HPCGN) model, integrating an improved attention based parallel convolutional network (IAPCNet) and GhostNet to capture complementary spatial-temporal patterns. Results: The proposed HPG-ESD framework achieved an accuracy of 0.941, precision of 0.939, and sensitivity of 0.944, outperforming conventional unimodal and state-of-the-art methods. Discussion: These results demonstrate the potential of multi-modal learning and lightweight attention-enhanced architectures for reliable and clinically relevant seizure detection.