<![CDATA[The electroencephalogram (EEG) stands out as a promising non-invasive tool for assessing depression. However, the efficient selection of channels is crucial for pinpointing key channels that can differentiate between different stages of depression within the vast dataset. This study outcome a comprehensive strategy for optimizing EEG channels to classify Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) using machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) approaches, and monitor effect of central lobe channels. A thorough review underscores the vital significance of EEG channel selection in the analysis of mental disorders. Neglecting this optimization step could result in heightened computational expenses, squandered resources, and potentially inaccurate classification results. Our assessment encompassed a range of techniques, such as Asymmetric Variance Ratio (AVR), Amplitude Asymmetry Ratio (AAR), Entropy-based selection employing Probability Mass Function (PMF), and Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) where, RFE exhibited superior performance, particularly in pinpointing the most pertinent EEG channels while including central lobe channels like Fz, Cz, and Pz. With this accuracy between 97 to 99% is recorded by Electroencephalography Neural Network (EEGNet). Our experimental findings indicate that, models using RFE achieved enhancement in accuracy to classifying depressive disorders across diverse classifiers: EEGNet (96%), Random Forest (95%), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM: 97.4%), 1D-CNN with 95%, and Multi-Layer Perceptron (98%) irrespective of central lobe incorporation. A pivotal contribution of this research is the development of a robust Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) model trained on EEG data from 382 participants, achieved accuracy of 98.7%, with a perfect precision score of 1.00, F1-Score of 0.983, and a Recall-Score of 0.966, to make it an enhanced technique for depression classification. Significant channels identified include Fp1, Fp2, F7, F4, F8, T3, C3, Cz, T4, T5, and P3, offering critical insights about depression. Our findings shows that, optimized EEG channel selection via RFE enhances depression classification accuracy in the field of brain-computer interface.]]>
