Enhancing Brain Signal Generation Through a Hybrid Approach Integrating Reinforcement Learning and Diffusion Models

Abstract

Developing a reliable EEG-based Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system typically requires large and diverse training datasets, but collecting sufficient data remains challenging due to subject fatigue and inter-individual variability. To address these limitations, this study proposes a reinforcement learning-enhanced EEG diffusion (RLED) framework for adaptive data augmentation in endogenous EEG tasks, with a focus on motor imagery and emotion recognition. The framework integrates a reinforcement learning mechanism to dynamically regulate the diffusion training process and achieve a flexible balance among temporal, spectral, and class-related features. Experiments on four datasets demonstrate that the proposed method generates high-quality synthetic EEG signals and consistently improves classification performance. These findings show that the proposed RLED framework may serve as a promising tool for EEG data augmentation and generalization in practical BCI applications.