A Deep Neural Network-Based Spike Sorting with Improved Channel Selection and Artefact Removal

In order to implement highly efficient brain-machine interface (BMI) systems, high-channel count sensing is often used to record extracellular action potentials. However, the extracellular recordings are typically severely contaminated by artefacts and various noise sources, rendering the separation of multi-unit neural recordings an immensely challenging task. Removing artefact and noise from neural events can improve the spike sorting performance and classification accuracy. This paper presents a deep learning technique called deep spike detection (DSD) with a strong learning ability of high-dimensional vectors for neural channel selection and artefacts removal from the selected neural channel. The proposed method significantly improves spike detection compared to the conventional methods by sequentially diminishing the noise level and discarding the active artefacts in the recording channels. The simulated and experimental results show that there is considerably better performance when the extracellular raw recordings are cleaned prior to assigning individual spikes to the neurons that generated them. The DSD achieves an overall classification accuracy of 91.53% and outperformes Wave_clus by 3.38% on the simulated dataset with various noise levels and artefacts.