J. Cent. South Univ.

(2018) 25: 1084−1098

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-018-3808-6

An improved brain emotional learning algorithm for

accurate and efficient data analysis

MEI Ying(梅英)1, 2, TAN Guan-zheng(谭冠政)1

1. School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China;
2. Electrical and Information Engineering College, Hunan University of Arts and Science,
Changde 415000, China
© Central South University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract: To overcome the deficiencies of high computational complexity and low convergence speed in traditional
neural networks, a novel bio-inspired machine learning algorithm named brain emotional learning (BEL) is introduced.
BEL mimics the emotional learning mechanism in brain which has the superior features of fast learning and quick
reacting. To further improve the performance of BEL in data analysis, genetic algorithm (GA) is adopted for optimally
tuning the weights and biases of amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in BEL neural network. The integrated algorithm
named GA-BEL combines the advantages of the fast learning of BEL, and the global optimum solution of GA.
GA-BEL has been tested on a real-world chaotic time series of geomagnetic activity index for prediction, eight
benchmark datasets of university California at Irvine (UCI) and a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
dataset for classifications. The comparisons of experimental results have shown that the proposed GA-BEL algorithm is
more accurate than the original BEL in prediction, and more effective when dealing with large-scale classification
problems. Further, it outperforms most other traditional algorithms in terms of accuracy and execution speed in both
prediction and classification applications.

Key words: prediction; classification; brain emotional learning; genetic algorithm

Cite this article as: MEI Ying, TAN Guan-zheng. An improved brain emotional learning algorithm for accurate and
efficient data analysis [J]. Journal of Central South University, 2018, 25(5): 1084–1098. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11771-018-3808-6.

very popular due to the characteristics of

1 Introduction self-learning, self-adaptive and high generalization
capability. However, the traditional ANNs have
Data analysis is an important task of machine been proven to have some significant drawbacks,
intelligence in the field of information and it can such as low training speed, high computational
extract useful information from large-scale data, complexity and the convergence rate is hard to meet
which is helpful to provide guidance for the next the requirements of real-time applications. To
decision. Nowadays, many artificial intelligence overcome these deficiencies, researchers have to
methods have been proposed for classification, study new neural networks and new machine
pattern recognition, prediction and fitting problems, learning algorithms.
such as support vector machine (SVM) [1], Thanks to the neurobiology and cognition
k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) [2] and artificial neural research of emotion, emotional intelligence is
network (ANN) [3]. Among these methods, ANN is playing an important role in artificial intelligence in
Foundation item: Project(61403422) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Project(17C1084) supported by
Hunan Education Department Science Foundation of China; Project(17ZD02) supported by Hunan University of Arts
and Science, China
Received date: 2017−03−20; Accepted date: 2017−10−20
Corresponding author: TAN Guan-zheng, PhD, Professor; Tel: +86–13873646526; E-mail: 63641214@qq.com; ORCID: 0000-0003-
1237-7166
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
recent years, and it has attracted an increasing
interest around the world. Several bio-inspired brain
emotional learning (BEL) models have been
proposed and successfully applied in intelligent
engineering applications [4, 5]. These BEL models
are based on a computational model called
amygdala-orbitofrontal model [6], which was
inspired by LEDOUX’s anatomical findings [7] of
emotional learning mechanism in mammalian brain.
BEL-based models mimic the high speed of
emotional learning in brain, which have the
superior features of fast learning and quick reacting.
Thus, they are also widely used in classification,
prediction and control applications [8–10].
In amygdala-orbitofrontal model [6], the
reward signal plays an important role to adjust the
weights of amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in
emotional learning process, but it is not clearly
defined so far. Many researchers proposed different
versions of BEL models based on amygdala-
orbitofrontal model, as well as different reward
signal determinations. LUCAS et al [11] proposed
the BEL-based intelligent controller (BELBIC)
which had been successfully applied in intelligent
engineering applications. ABDI et al [12] applied a
modified BEL model to predict short-term traffic
flow and defined the reward signal as the
multiplication of some related weights. CHEN et al
[13] presented a BEL-based controller for a four-
wheel drive robot. Although these BEL-based
models achieved success in the applications, they
were based on reinforcement learning to adjust the
weights of Amygdala and Orbitofrontal cortex.
These methods are model-sensitive and cannot be
generalized to other issues. LOTFI et al [14]
proposed a novel BEL-based pattern recognizer
(BELPR), instead of employing reward-based
reinforcement learning, it employed activation
functions and target values to update the weights of
BEL network in the learning phase. The BELPR
can be learned by using pattern-target examples and
it is model-free and time-saving. However, the
pattern-target learning method reduced the
precision of the process, and the performance of
accuracy in data analysis needs to be further
improved.
In this study, we aim to optimize the BEL
network and make it more accurate. Recently,
several evolutionary algorithms have been available
to apply in optimization problems, such as artificial
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bee colony algorithm (ABC) [15], differential
evolution (DE) [16] and genetic algorithm (GA)
[17]. However, the standard ABC suffers from a
slow convergence speed for its solution search
equation [15]. Although DE is relatively simple and
easily to converge, it may easily fall into local
minimum in the searching process [18]. GA tends to
efficiently explore various regions of the decision
space, and find an optimal solution with a high
probability [19]. It has been demonstrated that the
performance of neural network can be substantially
improved by optimizing the weights with GA
[20–22] and the learning process of network is
regarded as the process of searching for optimum in
the weight space. Therefore, the present work
intends to integrate GA with the novel BEL neural
network to determine properly weights of the
network. The integrated algorithm named GA-BEL
takes advantage of the fast learning and low
computational complexity of BEL, as well as the
global optimum solution of GA. Thus, GA-BEL is
expected to achieve better performance than the
original BEL in data analysis. The GA-BEL has
been tested on a chaotic time series of geomagnetic
index for real-world prediction, eight datasets of
benchmark university California at Irvine (UCI)
and a functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) dataset for classifications. The comparisons
of experimental results indicate the superiority of
the proposed GA-BEL in terms of accuracy and
execution speed.
2 Related works
2.1 Anatomical foundation
The limbic system theory [23] is the neural
basis for emotional brain studies. Figure 1(a) [14]
shows the limbic system in the brain and its
components, including the sensory cortex, thalamus,
amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex etc. There are two
main parts among these components. One is
amygdala, which is properly situated to reach the
emotional stimulus and plays a pivotal role in
emotional learning process. Another is orbitofrontal
cortex, which assists amygdala to process emotional
stimulus. LEDOUX [7] stated that emotional
stimuli can reach amygdala by two different paths,
as shown in Figure 1(b). One is long and precise
path, coming from the sensory cortex,
and another is short but imprecise path, coming
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Figure 1 Limbic system and emotion circuits in brain:
(a) Limbic system [14]; (b) Emotion circuits
directly from the Thalamus. LEDOUX [7] argued
that due to the existence of short path in the
emotional brain, emotional stimuli were processed
much faster than normal stimuli.
2.2 Previous BEL model
Motivated by LEDOUX’s anatomical findings
[7] in the mammalian brain, MORÉN and
BALKENIUS [6] firstly proposed the amygdala-
orbitofrontal model in 2000 and the framework of
amygdala-orbitofrontal model is shown in Figure 2.
In amygdala-orbitofrontal model, amygdala and
orbitofrontal cortex are two crucial parts of
emotional learning and reacting. Amygdala receives
emotional stimuli from the Sensory cortex and
Thalamus as well as the external reward signal, and
it interacts with the orbitofrontal cortex and reacts
to the emotional stimuli based on the reward signal.
The orbitofrontal cortex receives sensory input
from the sensory cortex and evaluates the
amygdala’s response to prevent inappropriate
learning connections. They interact frequently to
mimic the functionality of the emotional brain
Figure 2 Framework of amygdala-orbitofrontal model
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
responsible for processing emotional stimulus.
In amygdala-orbitofrontal model, Si is sensory
input; Aj is the internal output of the amygdala; Oj is
the internal output of the orbitofrontal cortex. The
reward signal Rew is used to update weights of
amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in emotional
learning, and the learning rules are expressed as
follows [6]:
vi   ( Si max(0, Rew   A j )) (1)
j
wi   ( Si  (O j  Rew )) (2)
j
where Δvi and Δwi represent the weights of
amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex, respectively; α
and β are learning rates, which are used to adjust
the learning speed. The reward signal Rew is used to
adjust the weights in the emotional learning
process.
Various modified BEL models that are based
on amygdala-orbitofrontal model have been
proposed [11, 13], as well as the reward signal
determination. In Ref. [12], the reward signal Rew is
defined as:
Rew =  w j rj (3)
j
where rj stands for the factor of the reinforcement
agent and wj represents the related weight.
CHEN et al [13] proposed a BEL controller for
a four-wheel drive robot and the reward signal Rew
is defined as:
de
Rew =r1e+ r2  edt  r3 (4)
dt
where r1, r2, r3 stand for the factors of weights; e
represents the error.
Although these BEL models achieved success
in the special applications, they applied reward-
based reinforcement learning to adjust the weights
of amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex, and they were
model-sensitive and cannot be generalized to other
issues.
LOTFI et al [14] firstly proposed the model-
free version of BEL-based pattern recognizer,
which employed the target value (T) of input pattern
in the learning phase and the reward signal Rew is
defined as follows:
Rew = T (5)
Thus, the supervised learning rules in BEL
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
model are described as follows:
v kj 1  (1   )v kj   max(T k  Eak , 0) Pjk ,
j  1, 2,  , n  1
wkj 1  wkj   ( E k  T k ) Pjk , j  1, 2,  , n
where vkj and wkj represent the weights of amygdala
and orbitofrontal cortex, respectively; Tk is the
target value associated with the kth input pattern Pk;
Eka is the internal output of amygdala; Ek is the final
output of the BEL model; γ is the decay rate in the
amygdala learning rule; α and β are learning rates.
The model can be employed to learn the
pattern-target relationship of an application by
using BEL algorithm, but this method reduces the
precision of the process. Thus, we employed GA to
optimally tune the weights of BEL neural network.
At the same time, we improved BEL neural network
for prediction and classification applications.
3 Implementation
3.1 Single-output BEL neural network for
prediction
In contrast to the previous BEL-based models,
in this study, we applied fitness function in GA
instead of reward-based reinforcement learning to
update the weights of amygdala and orbitofrontal
cortex in emotional learning. Therefore, motivated
by the network in Ref. [9], we deleted the reward
signal in the BEL neural network. In addition,
according to the biological interaction between
amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in the emotional
learning, we added the bias for each part to make
the model more accurate. The improved BEL-based
Figure 3 Improved single-output BEL network for prediction
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neural network is shown in Figure 3. Similar to the
amygdala-orbitofrontal model, it consists of four
common components including thalamus, sensory
(6) cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala.
(7) Amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex are the two main
parts, which are mainly responsible for emotional
learning and response.
The model is presented as multi-input single-
output architecture, amygdala receives m input
patterns S=[S1, S2, …, Sm] from the Sensory cortex
and Ath from the thalamus. Ath is calculated by
Ath  max( S1 , S2 ,  , Sm ) (8)
As shown in Figure 3, vi is the amygdala
weight and ba is the bias of amygdala neuron. For
each sensory input, there is an amygdala node Ai to
receive. EA is the internal output of the amygdala
and it is calculated by
 Ai  Si  vi , i  1, 2,  , m
 (9)
 Am 1  Ath  vm 1
m 1 m
EA   Ai  ba   Si  vi  Ath vm 1  ba (10)
i 1 i 1
For each sensory input, there is an
orbitofrontal cortex node Oi to receive. EO is the
output of the orbitofrontal cortex that is used to
inhibit the amygdala’s output, which is calculated
by
Oi  Si  wi , i  1, 2,  , m (11)
m m
EO   Oi  bo   Si  wi  bo (12)
i 1 i 1
where wi represents orbitofrontal cortex weight; bo
represents the bias of orbitofrontal cortex neuron.
1088
Finally, the final output is simply calculated by
E  E A  EO (13)
where E is the final output that represents the
correct response of amygdala.
In the single-output BEL neural network, the
number of input patterns determines the neurons
number in the thalamus and sensory cortex units.
The BEL neural network can be learned by
pattern-target examples and it is model free and can
be utilized in prediction application.
3.2 Multiple-output BEL neural network for
classification
The single-output BEL neural network can be
extended to multiple-output network for
classification. The number of sample classes
determines the number of orbitofrontal cortex and
amygdala units. Thus, the extended BEL model can
be applied in binary and multiple classifications. In
the proposed m–n architecture as shown in Figure 4,
Figure 4 Improved multiple-output BEL network for classification
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
m represents the number of input features; n
represents the number of sample classes; each
amygdala-orbitofrontal cortex unit interacts
separately in the learning process.
In this study, the weights and biases of
amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in BEL neural
network is optimized by GA. The data analysis with
GA-BEL can be divided into three parts: BEL
neural network structure determination, parameters
optimization and prediction or classification output
of BEL neural network.
3.3 Optimizing BEL neural network with GA
1) Chromosome representation
For the advantage of high precision, real
encoding is adopted to acquire optimal results. One
real number string represents one chromosome,
which consists of connection weights and biases of
orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala. According to the
structure of BEL neural network, each chromosome
is initialized as follows [9]:
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
Ch  [ w1 ,  , wm , bo , v1 ,  , vm 1 , ba ] (14)
where wm and bo represent orbitofrontal cortex
weights and bias, respectively; vm and ba represent
amygdala weights and bias, respectively. The values
of the weights and biases are chosen in [–1, 1];
m is the number of input features; the number of
genes in each chromosome is 2m+3.
2) Fitness function
Fitness function is used to evaluate the
adaptability of each individual in the whole
population, and the individual fitness will provide
reference to selection operation. The learning
process aims to minimize the total error for all
training samples. As a consequence, we select the
root mean squared error as the evaluation criterion
of weights, and the fitness function is defined as
1 n
Fitness (Chk )   ( Ek  Tk )2
n k 1
(15)
where Ek is the response to the kth input pattern
with given weights and biases in Chk, which can be
calculated by Eq. (13); Tk is the target value of kth
input pattern; n is the number of pattern-target pairs.
3) Operations
(a) Selection. To choose better individual for
subsequent iteration, we adopt the roulette wheel
selection scheme [18]. The fitness of each
individual corresponds to the proportion of
selection. There are three steps: Firstly, find out the
best chromosome and the worst chromosome in the
current generation according to the fitness value.
Secondly, copy the best individual if it is better than
the best individual from the previous generation. At
last, replace the worst individual with the best one
from the previous generation. The selection
probability pi for each individual i is given as
follows:
 fi  k / Fi
 n
 (16)
 p i  f i /  fj
 j 1
where Fi is the fitness value of individual i; k is the
coefficient; n is the number of individuals in a
group.
(b) Crossover. To enlarge the diversity and
searching space, the crossover operation is needed
to produce two new individuals by exchanging
information between the parent individuals [24]. We
defined the crossover rules as follows:
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cik (n  1)   cik (n)  (1   )c kj (n)
 k k k
(17)
c j (n  1)   c j (n)  (1   )ci (n)
where cki and ckj represent the chromosomes which
occur crossover in the kth bit; n denotes the number
of iterations; α is a random number uniformly
distributed in [0, 1].
(c) Mutation. To further enlarge the searching
space, mutation is another way to create new
individual. Mutation operation is needed to change
one or some gene values of chromosome. The
method of mutation is given as follows:
 c j ( g )  (cij ( g )  cmax ) * f ( g ), r1  0.5
cij ( g  1)   i
j j
 ci ( g )  (cmin  ci ( g )) * f ( g ), r1  0.5
 2
 f ( g )  r2 (1  g / Gmax )
(18)
where c ji (g) represents the chromosome which
occurs mutation in the jth bit; cmax is the upper limit
of allele; cmin is the lower limit of allele; g
represents current generation; Gmax is the maximum
iteration; r1 and r2 are random numbers within the
range [0, 1].
After the operations of selection, crossover and
mutation, the best chromosome can be found which
represents the best combination of weights and
biases in BEL network. The original weights and
biases will be updated by the genes of the best
chromosome, and the trained BEL network can be
used for data analysis.
The pseudo-code of GA-BEL is given as
follows:
begin
t←0; /* t represents the number of current
generation*/
Initialize genetic parameters, cmax, cmin, Gmax,
etc.;
Initialize a population P(t) of chromosomes
defined in Eq. (14);
for i=1:m /*m represents the number of
samples*/
Calculate BEL network output according to
Eq. (8)–Eq. (13);
Evaluate the fitness of P(t) according to
Eq. (15);
Obtain the best found result from P(t);
while termination criterion is not fulfilled do
t←t+1;
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Select P(t) from P(t−1) by selection
process according to Eq. (16);
Alter P(t) by crossover according to
Eq. (17) based on the crossover
probability;
Mutate offspring according to Eq. (18)
based on the mutation probability;
Update the weights and biases of the
BEL network;
Calculate BEL network output according
to Eq. (8)–Eq. (13);
Evaluate the new fitness function of P(t)
according to Eq. (15);
Obtain the best found result from P(t)
and compare with P(t–1);
Replace the worst chromosome of P(t)
with the best result of P(t–1);
end while
Output the best chromosome; /* The best
chromosome represents the combination of
the best weights and biases in BEL network
according to Eq.(14)*/
end
4 Simulation results
In this section, two case studies are
constructed to evaluate the performance of the
proposed GA-BEL algorithm. The first experiment
is built to show the performance of GA-BEL in
prediction. The second experiment is arranged to
test the GA-BEL on classification. The comparative
experiments are also carried out in the two cases.
Both experiments are performed in MATLAB
R2013a running in Intel core-i7 3.4GHz CPU with
8.00 GB RAM and Windows 7 operation system.
4.1 Case 1: Experimental results on prediction
4.1.1 Dataset description
In this work, one real-world prediction
problem has been studied. The geomagnetic storm
disturbs the earth’s magnetosphere and causes
harmful damage to the ground-based
communication. Therefore, it is essential to predict
the geomagnetic activity indices for alert systems
development. The disturbance storm time (Dst)
index [25] is one of the main indices of
geomagnetic storms, which is usually defined to
measure the intensity of geomagnetic storms. Dst is
a chaotic time series which has been utilized by
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
many data-driven models and it can be downloaded
from the World Data Center for Geomagnetism,
Kyoto, Japan. Here, 1000 pattern-target pairs of
hourly Dst index in year of 2000 are used for online
prediction.
4.1.2 Performance evaluation
Prediction performance can be evaluated by
mean squared error (MSE) and linear correlation
coefficient (R), which are expressed as follows [14]:
1 n
  Pi  Ti 
2
MSE  (19)
n i 1
n
  Pi  Pmean   Ti  Tmean 
i 1
R (20)
n  Pstd  Tstd
The single-output BEL neural network in
Figure 3 can be used in time series prediction
problems. In this study, we considered the first
four-sequence samples as input patterns, and the 5th
sequence as the target pattern. Consider the
following time series: Dst1, Dst2, Dst3,…, Dstt, …,
Dstt+1 is the predicted value at time t+1 which can
be calculated by
Dst(t  1)  E (Dst(t ), Dst(t  1), Dst(t  2), Dst(t  3))
(21)
where E is the final output of single-output BEL
neural network which can be calculated by Eq. (13).
4.1.3 Results and discussions
The single-output BEL neural network can be
used in time series prediction problems. For the
BEL network, there are four features as sensory
input, and one output of amygdala-orbitofrontal
cortex unit. Thus, the input nodes, hidden nodes and
output node are set to 4, 3, 1, respectively. The
initial weights and biases of amygdala and
orbitofrontal cortex units are randomly selected
between [–1, 1]. In GA, the population groups are
set to 200 and each population size is set to 11; the
maximal generation is set to 100; the crossover and
the mutation rates are 0.8 and 0.001, respectively.
Finally, the results of prediction for the Dst index
are presented in Figure 5.
Figure 5(a) shows the MSE corresponding to
each epoch during the evolution. As illustrated in
Figure 5(a), the best MSE is obtained at 100 epoch
after the process is in steady state. Figure 5(b)
illustrates the predicted versus desired output of the
Dst index. Target on the X-axis represents the
desired output. Output on the Y-axis represents the
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
Figure 5 Prediction results of Dst index with GA-BEL:
(a) Mean squared error; (b) Linear correlation analysis of
training samples; (c) Linear correlation analysis of
testing samples
actual output of the GA-BEL model. The linear
relationship between target and output is also given
on the left side. As illustrated in Figures 5(b) and
(c), the values of R are 0.95897 and 0.97128 in the
training and testing samples, respectively. It
indicates that the linear correlation between the
output and the desired value is very good in the
testing samples.
For comparison, we apply the original BEL to
test on the same Dst index dataset. Figure 6
presents the prediction results in steady states.
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Figure 6 Prediction results of Dst index with BEL:
(a) Mean squared error; (b) Linear correlation analysis of
training samples; (c) Linear correlation analysis of
testing samples
As illustrated in Figure 6(a), the best MSE is
obtained at epoch 2. After the process is in steady
state, Figure 6(b) illustrates the predicted versus
desired output of the Dst index. As illustrated in
Figure 6(b), the BEL obtained R=0.94462 in testing
samples, which is much less than R=0.97128 of
GA-BEL in testing samples.
We also compared GA-BEL with the
traditional multilayer perceptron (MLP) [26].
Table 1 presents the detailed MSE and R obtained
from the GA-BEL, BEL and LM-BP in the testing
1092
samples. It is obvious that fast training is the main
feature of BEL-based algorithms compared to
LM-BP algorithm [26]. Although the original BEL
needs less epochs to reach the steady state,
GA-BEL achieves higher correlation and lower
mean square error, which implies that GA-BEL is
more accurate than BEL in prediction.
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
information for each subject, including age, gender,
verbal IQ, performance IQ, etc. There are several
imaging sites: NeuroImage (NI), New York
University Medical Center (NYU), Peking
University (Peking), etc. We adopted the widely
used ADHD-200 dataset provided by Peking
University and the description is shown in Table 3.

Table 1 Comparisons of GA-BEL, BEL and LM-BP on Table 3 ADHD-200 dataset description
Dst prediction Control subject ADHD subject
Total No.
Model Learning Epoch MSE R of image Female Male Average Female Male Average
Age Age
ENN BEL 2 0.2086 0.94462 194 46 68 11 10 70 12
ENN GA-BEL 100 0.0014 0.97128
MLP LM-BP 783 4.1075 0.92183
We preprocessed the ADHD-200 dataset using
SPM8 toolbox [29], and chose 125 samples (68
4.2 Case 2: Experimental results on classification
controls, 57 ADHD) for this study. After feature
4.2.1 Datasets description
extraction based on wavelet transform and
UCI [27] datasets are usually used to evaluate
reduction [30], the feature vectors are sent to the
the performance of the algorithm. In this study, we
chose eight benchmark datasets for testing, proposed GA-BEL for classification. By combining
including binary and multiclass datasets, which are all ADHD subtypes in one category, the
of relatively high or low dimensions, large or small classification on ADHD-200 dataset is posed as a
sizes, and the details are summarized in Table 2. two-class classification, that is, ADHD’s subjects
and normal controls.
Table 2 Datasets description 4.2.2 Performance evaluation
Attribute Dataset Sample Feature Class Classification performance can be evaluated
by the confusion matrix as described in Figure 7, in
Iris 150 4 3
Low dims, which measures such as accuracy, precision and
small size Breast
699 9 2
Cancer recall are commonly used to assess the performance
Low dims, Banana 5300 2 2 of bankruptcy classification systems. Among them,
large size SVMguide1 7089 4 2 the classification accuracy (row 3-column 3, blue
High dims, Heart 270 13 2 area) is the main evaluation index, which is
small size Wine 178 13 3 calculated as follows [30, 31]:

High dims, Satimage 6435 36 6 TP  TN

Accuracy   100% (22)
large size Segment 2310 19 7 TP  FP  TN  FN

where TP is the number of true positives; TN is the

The fMRI data contain numerous number of true negatives; FP is the number of false
spatiotemporal observations, which can reflect
changes of functional networks in the brain. FMRI
data are always used for investigating healthy brain
function and detecting abnormalities. Attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the
most common diseases in young children. In this
study, the fMRI dataset called “ADHD-200” is used
for fMRI classification problem, which can be
downloaded from the competition website [28]. The
ADHD-200 data are time-series of 3D images of
which size is 49*58*47. It consists of resting state
fMRI data as well as different phenotypic Figure 7 Confusion matrix
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098 1093
positives; FN is the number of false negatives [30,
31]. Taking the classification on Breast Cancer
dataset for example, the detailed explanations of TP,
TN, FP and FN are given as follows:
TP: It means that some breast cancer cases
(positives) are correctly classified as patients with
breast cancer.
TN: It means that some healthy persons
(negatives) are correctly classified as healthy
persons.
FP: It means that some healthy persons are
incorrectly classified as patients with breast cancer.
FN: It means that some cases with breast
cancer are incorrectly classified as healthy persons.
The performance of execution speed can be
evaluated by the computing time in training and
testing process.
4.2.3 Classification results
1) Classification on Breast Cancer dataset
As mentioned above, the input patterns
determine the number of neurons in Sensory cortex
units, and the classes of samples determine the
number of output units. Therefore, the learning
parameters vary according to the samples. For the
Breast Cancer dataset, parameters setting is
separated for BEL and GA, as shown in Table 4. We
used 70% of samples as training data, and the
remaining 30% of samples were used to serve the
validation and test purposes. The simulation results
are shown in Figure 8.

Table 4 Parameters setting for GA-BEL algorithm

(Breast Cancer dataset)
Algorithm Parameter Setting
Training sample 489
Testing sample 210
Input node 9
BEL
Hidden node 5
Output node 2
Random initial weights [–1, 1]
Population group 200
Figure 8 Classification results of GA-BEL (Breast
Maximal generation 100
Cancer dataset): (a) Best and mean fitness during
GA Population size 21 evolution; (b) Confusion matrix of training samples;
Crossover probability 0.8 (c) Confusion matrix of testing samples
Mutation probability 0.01
value, GA-BEL obtains the best chromosome. The
As shown in Figure 8(a), GA-BEL comes to confusion matrices in Figures 8(b, c) show the
convergence at iteration 100 where the value of classification accuracies (row 3-column 3, blue
mean fitness is nearly equal to the best fitness area) are 96.1% and 97.6% in training and testing
1094 J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
samples, respectively. The precision and recall are
also given in the two confusion matrices. The whole
process finished after 50 trials have been conducted,
and finally the average results were recorded.
2) Classification on Heart dataset
To evaluate the GA-BEL on relatively small
sizes and high dimensions dataset, we chose Heart
dataset for test. Heart dataset has 270 samples with
13 features. According to the features of Heart
dataset, the input nodes, hidden nodes and output
nodes are respectively set to 13, 6, 2. We used 70%
of samples as training data, while the rest is used to
serve the validation and classification purposes. In
GA, the population groups are set to 850 and each
population size is set to 29, the crossover and the
mutation rates are 0.7 and 0.03, respectively. To
find the best value of the iteration number, different
numbers of iterations from 100 to 900 were tried.
Finally, GA-BEL achieves the best performance
when the iteration number is equal to 700. Figures 9
and 10 show the results when the maximal
generations are set to 500 and 700, respectively.
Compared with Figures 9(a) and 10(a), the
best fitness value is improved. According to the
confusion matrices in Figures 9(b, c) and 10(b, c),
we can see that the GA-BEL achieves the testing
accuracy (row 3-column 3, blue area) with 86.4%
and 88.9% in 500 generations and 700 generations,
respectively. We obtained the average accuracy and
computing time after 50 trials have been conducted.
Next, GA-BEL was tested on Banana, Iris,
SVMguide1, ADHD-200, etc. in turn. For each
problem, 50 trials have been conducted, and finally
the average accuracies were recorded, as well as the
computing time.
4.2.4 Comparisons and discussions
The performance of GA-BEL is compared
with SVM and the original BEL on the same
datasets. The SVM is performed using the SVM
toolbox [32] with Gaussian kernel. 50 trials have
been conducted for each algorithm. The results in
terms of average accuracy and computing time are Figure 9 Classification results of GA-BEL (Heart dataset,
recorded. Detailed comparison results are given in 500 generations): (a) Best and mean fitness during
Table 5. For each dataset, the best accuracies and evolution; (b) Confusion matrix of training samples;
the shortest training time are highlighted. (c) Confusion matrix of testing samples
As observed from Table 5, comparing to SVM,
the BEL-based methods have the superior feature of training of SVM involves a quadratic programming
fast training for they mimic the high speed of problem, so the computational complexity is
emotional processing in the emotional brain, and usually high. Thus, the execution speed is lower
the computational complexity is low. While the than BEL-based method. Although, SVM achieves
J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098
Figure 10 Classification results of GA-BEL (Heart
dataset, 700 generations ): (a) Best and mean fitness
during evolution; (b) Confusion matrix of training
samples; (c) Confusion matrix of testing samples
higher accuracies in few cases.
Compared with the original BEL algorithm,
GA-BEL shows a significant improvement in terms
of classification accuracy. GA-BEL employs GA to
optimize the initial weights of amygdala and
1095
Orbitofrontal cortex in the BEL neural network, and
the BEL network can be substantially improved
after optimization. Thus GA-BEL is more accurate
than BEL. Moreover, for the GA-BEL may
encourage a grouping effect, it requires less training
time for large size samples, so it is more efficient
when dealing with large-scale classification
problems.
For further comparison, we list the
performance of the previous methods which
investigated on the classification problem and seven
datasets are specially chosen including high or low
dimensions, large or small sizes. For each dataset,
we report the testing accuracy and average
computing time of each method. As shown in
Table 6, GA-BEL achieves better classification
accuracy and faster execution speed than the
previous methods for most datasets.
5 Conclusions
An improved brain emotional learning
algorithm (BEL) based on GA is proposed. The
proposed GA-BEL algorithm mimics the high speed
of emotional learning mechanism in the brain,
which has the superior features of fast learning and
low computational complexity. In addition, GA is
applied to optimize the weights and biases of
amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in BEL neural
network, which makes the BEL model more
accurate.
A modified version of BEL neural network
based on amygdala-orbitofrontal model is
developed for prediction, as well as the extended
architecture for classification. Instead of using
reward-based reinforcement learning to adjust the
learning rules, in this study, GA-BEL is employed
to learn the pattern-target relationship of an
application, it is model-free and can be generalized
to classification, prediction and pattern recognition
applications.
Two case studies were carried on benchmark
prediction and classification problems, a chaotic
time series of geomagnetic index for real-world
prediction application, eight benchmark UCI
datasets and a fMRI dataset for classification
application. Results demonstrate the proposed GA-
BEL achieves better generalization performance at
faster execution speed compared to other
algorithms for most datasets.
1096 J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098

Table 5 Performance comparison of different algorithms

SVM BEL GA-BEL
Dataset Accuracy/% Accuracy/% Accuracy/%
Time/s Time/s Time/s
Training Testing Training Testing Training Testing
Breast cancer 98.1 97.3 5.41× 10−2 93.6 95.8 9.45× 10−3 96.3 97.5 7.51× 10−3
Iris 99.2 94.9 2.64× 10−1 98.6 98.5 2.17× 10−2 98.7 98.3 2.91× 10−2
Banana 89.8 88.3 9.37× 10−1 92.6 90.3 7.17× 10−2 91.7 91.5 6.31× 10−2
SVMguide1 96.6 96.3 5.37 97.1 97.3 1.15 97.8 97.5 4.85× 10−1
Heart 85.3 83.2 3.71× 10−2 84.6 85.2 2.52× 10−3 86.1 88.3 2.93× 10−3
−2 −2
Wine 98.5 98.3 3.02× 10 96.6 95.1 2.83× 10 97.4 97.2 3.69× 10−2
Satimage 92.1 90.3 12.50 92.5 91.1 3.51 93.6 91.7 2.27
−1
Segment 97.8 91.3 5.15 97.2 95.6 3.67× 10 97.9 96.9 2.12× 10−1
ADHD-200 66.2 64.7 4.13 76.5 74.1 3.95× 10−2 80.7 79.3 2.73× 10−2

Table 6 Classification results obtained with proposed method and previous methods
Dataset Sample Study Algorithm Accuracy/% Time/s
Breast ZHANG et al [33] o-GSCCA 62.9 1.64×10−2
699
Cancer This study GA-BEL 97.5 7.51×10−3
LUO et al [34] L1-L2-ELM 98.0 9.72×10−1
Iris 150
This study GA-BEL 98.3 2.91×10−2
HUANG et al [35] ELM( Gaussian) 89.8 4.69×10−2
Banana 5300
This study GA-BEL 91.5 6.31×10−2
BAI et al [36] SELM Gaussian) 84.4 4.20×10−3
Heart 270
This study GA-BEL 88.3 2.93×10−3
LUO et al [34] L1-L2-ELM 98.3 1.89
Wine 178
This study GA-BEL 97.2 3.69×10−2
BAI et al [36] SELM (Gaussian) 90.1 2.41
Satimage 6435
This study GA-BEL 91.7 2.27
RIAZ et al [37] SVM 64.7 4.13
ADHD-200 125
This study GA-BEL 79.3 2.73×10−2

This study introduces emotional intelligence
into artificial intelligence, which opens a lot of
research gates for the bio-inspired research. In
future work, other optimization method can be
employed, e.g., particle swarm optimization (PSO),
which employs different strategies and
computational effort to find a solution. Moreover, it
is appropriate to combine GA with PSO to further
improve the performance of the BEL network in the
future investigation, and apply them in real-time
applications.
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1098 J. Cent. South Univ. (2018) 25: 1084–1098

中文导读

基于改进大脑情感学习算法的有效数据分类

摘要：提出了采用遗传算法优化大脑情感学习模型的方法。大脑情感学习(BEL)模型是一种计算模型，
由 Morén 等人于 2000 年根据神经生理学上的发现提出。该模型根据大脑中杏仁体和眶额皮质之间的
情感学习机制建立，不完全地模拟了情感刺激在大脑反射通路中的信息处理过程。大脑情感学习模型
具有结构简单、计算复杂度低、运算速度快的特点。为了进一步提高模型的精度，采用遗传算法优化
调整大脑情感学习模型的权值，构造具有强泛化能力的大脑情感学习数据分析模型，并用于数据预测
与数据分类两方面。在数据预测方面，采用典型的磁暴环电流指数 Dst 时间序列作为测试数据。实验
结果表明，从均方差 MSE 和线性相关性 R 指标来看，GA-BEL 算法的误差小、相关度高，说明该算法用
于预测的有效性。在分类方面，采用 8 个典型的 UCI 数据集和一个典型的头部磁共振图像数据集(fMRI)
作为测试数据。分类实验结果表明，GA-BEL 算法的分类正确率高，运算速度快于传统算法，说明该算
法用于分类的有效性。

关键词：预测；分类；大脑情感学习；遗传算法