On the Use of t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding for Data Visualization and Classification of Individuals with Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that remains incurable. The available treatments for the disorder include pharmacologic therapies and deep brain stimulation (DBS). These approaches may cause distinct side effects and motor responses. This work presents the application of t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE), which is a machine learning algorithm for nonlinear dimensionality reduction and data visualization, for the problem of discriminating neurologically healthy individuals from those suffering from PD (treated with levodopa and DBS). Furthermore, the assessment of classification methods is presented. Inertial and electromyographic data were collected while the subjects executed a sequence of four motor tasks. The results were focused on the comparison of the classification performance of a support vector machine (SVM) while discriminating two-dimensional feature sets estimated from Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Sammon's mapping, and t-SNE. The results showed visual and statistical differences for all three investigated groups. Classification accuracy for PCA, Sammon's mapping, and t-SNE was, respectively, 73.5%, 78.6%, and 96.9% for the training set and 67.8%, 74.1%, and 76.6% for the test set. The possibility of discriminating healthy individuals from those with PD treated with levodopa and DBS highlights the fact that each treatment method produces distinct motor behavior. The scatter plots resulting from t-SNE could be used in the clinical practice as an objective tool for measuring the discrepancy between normal and abnormal motor behaviors, being thus useful for the adjustment of treatments and the follow-up of the disorder.