Automated Detection of Neurological and Mental Health Disorders Using EEG Signals and Artificial Intelligence: A Systematic Review

Mental and neurological disorders significantly impact global health. This systematic review examines the use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to automatically detect these conditions using electroencephalography (EEG) signals. Guided by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA), we reviewed 74 carefully selected studies published between 2013 and August 2024 that used machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), or both of these two methods to detect neurological and mental health disorders automatically using EEG signals. The most common and most prevalent neurological and mental health disorder types were sourced from major databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, PubMed, and IEEE Xplore. Epilepsy, depression, and Alzheimer's disease are the most studied conditions that meet our evaluation criteria, 32, 12, and 10 studies were identified on these topics, respectively. Conversely, the number of studies meeting our criteria regarding stress, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, and autism spectrum disorders was relatively more average: 6, 4, 3, and 3, respectively. The diseases that least met our evaluation conditions were one study each of seizure, stroke, anxiety diseases, and one study examining Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy together. Support Vector Machines (SVM) were most widely used in ML methods, while Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) dominated DL approaches. DL methods generally outperformed traditional ML, as they yielded higher performance using huge EEG data. We observed that the complex decision process during feature extraction from EEG signals in ML-based models significantly impacted results, while DL-based models handled this more efficiently. AI-based EEG analysis shows promise for automated detection of neurological and mental health conditions. Future research should focus on multi-disease studies, standardizing datasets, improving model interpretability, and developing clinical decision support systems to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of these disorders.