Exploratory Integration of EEG Spectral Features and Gaze Variability for Mild Cognitive Impairment Discrimination

Abstract

Early detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an important challenge in aging societies. Electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking have independently been explored as potential biomarkers; however, their integrative effects remain insufficiently examined. This exploratory study investigated whether combining EEG spectral features with gaze variability may provide complementary information for MCI discrimination. EEG signals were recorded using the 10--20 system, and spectral power features were extracted. We compared three models: (a) high-dimensional EEG features, (b) L1-regularized feature selection (LASSO), and (c) integration of the selected EEG features with gaze variability. Performance was evaluated using leave-one-out cross-validation and area under the ROC curve (AUC). Model (a) yielded limited discrimination (AUC = 0.52). Feature selection increased AUC (0.64), and additional integration of gaze variability further increased AUC (0.78). These preliminary findings suggest potential complementarity between neural and behavioral variability measures.