Optimized EEG-Based Depression Detection and Severity Staging Using GAN-Augmented Neuro-Fuzzy and Deep Learning Models

Abstract

Contrary to what was assumed; our system achieves excellence in achieving maximally fair outcomes by being present in the environment variable. In the real sense, such approaches are empirically aided by theory to implement EEG-based depression detection. We established the parameters of development of EEG-based depression detection in optimization of channel selection together with machine-learning models. Extreme channel selection was performed during this study with Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) whereby major 11 channels identified, and the MLP classifier achieved 98.7% accuracy supported by AI explainability, thus outpacing the XGBoost and LGBM by 5.2 to 8.2% across multiple datasets (n=184 to 382) and greatly endorsed incredible generalization (precision=1.000, recall=0.966). This makes MLP a trustworthy BCI tool for real-world implementation of depression screening. We also examined assigning depression stages (Mild/Moderate/Severe) on EEG data with models supported or not with GAN-based augmentation (198 to 5,000 samples). CNNs did well on Moderate-stage classification, while ANFIS kept a firm accuracy of 98.34% at perfect metric consistency (precision/recall=0.98) with AI explainability. GAN augmentation improved the classifications of severe cases by 15%, indicating a good marriage of neuro-fuzzy systems and synthetic data for the precise stage determination. This is an important contribution to BCI research since it offers a data-efficient and scalable framework for EEG based depression diagnosis and severity evaluation, thus contributing to the bridge between competitive modeling and clinical applicability. This work, therefore, lays down a pathway for the design of accessible and automated depression screening aids in both high-resource and low-resource settings.